3 Huron County teens credited with heroic water rescue

WAKEMAN, Ohio (WJW) – Drake Munroe, his cousin Morrison and their friend Connor Dawson were not supposed to be together on Saturday.

The three ended up taking a friend out to dinner for his birthday, but they went to the wrong restaurant.

On the way home, they were advised by a relative to avoid Route 60 through Wakeman as the rain-swollen Vermillion River threatened to crest its banks over the road.

They now believe that being in the right place at the right time may have been an act of divine intervention.

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About an hour before sunset on Saturday, the three Collins Western Reserve High School seniors were heading home on route 60 when they say a car appeared to be coming right at them.

Connor, who was driving, swerved to miss him, but the car continued through a narrow gap between a guardrail and a tree, disappearing into the raging river.

“It was just like a 50-foot, massive splash. You could hear it. You could hear it from all the way down there in our car,” said Drake.

The trio ran to the river, determined to rescue whoever was in the other car.

“My first thought was just take off my shoes because it is hard to swim with shoes and jump straight in the water,” said Drake.

He said the current pulled him completely under the water, but he was able to swim to the car where the high school wrestler struggled to pull the car door open.

“I opened the door and it only opened about three to five inches and it was super hard to open. I was pulling as hard as I could,” he said.

“I think he struggled with the left door first and then started moving to the right side and I told him, ‘No, if you open that side, it will all just rush in and it would sink faster because of the current,’” said Morrison.

“He (Connor) seen me struggling with the door and that’s when he jumped in and held the door open and I got in the passenger seat and I was like, ‘hey get… out of the car!’” said Drake.

He told FOX 8 the driver seemed lethargic, moving too slowly as the car was rapidly sinking.

“I was like, ‘we were going down too fast.’ Like, the water is already up to my belly in the car, so I just grabbed him and threw him out,” said Drake.

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“He went straight under the water as soon as he threw him out and I pulled him to me and I started holding him up and he couldn’t make any attempt to swim,” said Connor.

Morrison, who had been on the banks calling 911, was able to wade in and pull the driver to safety.

Drake said as soon as he made it to the banks, he turned around to see the car completely submerged, which happened in a matter of only about five seconds.

The driver out of the freezing water and on the banks by the time the first fire truck arrived. Lt. Jim Palmer of the Wakeman Volunteer Fire Department was on that first truck.

“We were prepared for the worst when we got here, but it was actually real good when we got here thanks to them,” said Palmer.

“We got down here and you guys had him out, which that was a lifesaver right there for him. It made our job easy,” he told the three teens.

The driver was taken to a nearby hospital and is expected to be OK.

The crash is under investigation by the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

In the meantime, there is little doubt that the effort of the three teens helped save his life.

“I know the risks of that water when its raging because we lost some of our family members in that same river for the same reasons,” said Drake.

“Absolutely, I wouldn’t watch a man drown in front of me. I mean, there’s no way, couldn’t do it,” said Morrison.

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