An eight-month pregnant woman owes her life and that of her baby to a complete stranger.
Driving on I-95 in Martin County, Shedly Appolon felt dizzy. It was his 29th birthday; She was probably happy, but biology and destiny had prepared a disastrous gift for her.
The dizziness increased until he lost control of his car, which ended up leaving the road and falling into a pond. Confused, she called her fiancé and told him she was “in the water,” which in turn confused him.
As reported by WPBF, at that moment the phone went off, just as water began to seep through the gaps under the pedals and the car began to lean forward in the brown water.
“I tried to open the driver’s door and the passenger door, but they were both submerged in water, so I couldn’t get out,” she said. “I started to feel water on my feet. So, I started to panic a little bit.”
That’s when the good Samaritan there, Logan Hayes, stripped off his extra layers of clothing, jumped up, and swam toward the car to open the back door before he too was submerged.
“When he opened that door, I thought, you’re an angel,” Appolon told WPBF.
It is almost impossible to open a car door while it is sinking; The force needed to displace water is beyond what most humans can generate with their arms or even their legs. The best chance to save your life if you know for sure that your car is going to enter the water is to open the door on the way or lower all the windows, which, like the door, cannot be opened once they are taking in water.
If not, the only other option is to break the windows or hold your breath until the pressure in the cabin equals that of the water; At that time, the door will open easily. This was demonstrated on the Discovery channel in the program Mythbusters as something beyond the limit of most people’s lung capacity.
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Fortunately for Appolon, Hayes reached the doors before the water, and helped her to safety.
Paramedics arrived and rushed her to the hospital, where it was determined that the stress of the near-death experience required an emergency C-section.
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Appolon’s fiancé arrived at the hospital after the birth of their daughter, Ivory, 7 weeks early, weighing 1,775kg. She described Ivory as her “miracle baby,” and it’s easy to see why.
Hayes said he was just happy to be in the right place at the right time.
WATCH the story below from CBS Chicago…
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