An 18-year-old Colorado teenager became an everyday hero when he spotted a dangerous situation happening through his drone camera.
18-year-old Josh Logue of Brighton, Colorado, was flying the aerial device above the Denver-Hudson Canal on Saturday to inspect how much water had accumulated after recent heavy rainfall, when he saw a shadow on the ground below.
The teenager’s impulse to investigate became a lifesaving endeavor when the “dark spot” turned out to be a seven foot sinkhole that sucked in a Jeep.
The Jeep was overturned and quickly filling with water, but what Logue didn’t know at the time was that there were two occupants, an unidentified 66-year-old man and a 61-year-old woman inside.
The man who had been driving was seriously injured, as he had not been wearing a seatbelt, but his girlfriend was buckled up when the Jeep plunged into the newly opened sinkhole, and was fine but in danger of drowning.
The quick thinking teen called 911 right away and directed them towards the area where the sinkhole was.
Luckily, a first responder was conveniently at Logue’s house at the time of the incident.
Denver Fire Department Assistant Chief Ryan Nuanes, 46, who lives next to the teenager’s parents, was perusing their garage sale during when he made the shocking discovery.
The pair and Logue’s father Jake, piled into a truck and drove out to the location of the sinkhole.
When the arrived at the accident site, Jeep’s horn was blaring. “I really didn’t like that because in my experience as a firefighter, that’s typically what happens right after a car accident,” Nuanes told USA Today.
“The horn gets damaged but the battery still has enough charge in it that it’ll make the horn go off until somebody disables it.”
They were shocked to hear cries for help inside of the vehicle they initially had believed to be unoccupied.
Logue told Denver 7 that couple was trapped upside down and had very little air in a situation with rapidly rising water.
“They had six inches of room of an air pocket in there for them to breathe, but the rest was water,” he told the outlet.
When Brighton firefighters arrived ten minutes later, they utilized a combination of their own equipment and Jake’s pick-up truck to get the Jeep onto its side and pull the couple out.
“Young man buys his drone, and that’s his hobby. And he just happens to be in the right place at the right time, and we’re able to see this car from somewhere around two miles away,” Nuanes reflected on the couple’s incredible luck.
He was amazed how if just one factor varied, the day could have ended in a tragedy.
“If we don’t go over to the garage sale and we don’t have this conversation about this creek, the kid doesn’t watch the drone,” he detailed.
“If one link doesn’t happen, he doesn’t fly the drone down there and we don’t get there.”
