Sometimes, rescuers find themselves needing to be rescued. That was the case at around 3 a.m. Wednesday, when Starflight had to pull four firefighters out of their own rescue boat. It is one of several rescues that Austin-Travis County's air ambulance made overnight.
Wednesday afternoon, the San Gabriel River was still raging. Imagine the water rising higher, and moving faster, in the dark of night. That is when the crew aboard one of Austin-Travis County’s three Starflight helicopters took video of a dramatic rescue. The Starflight crew hoisted four firefighters from various departments from their rescue boat, aboard the helicopter.
Glenn Anderson Chief Medical Supervisor with Starflight says, “They were trying to facilitate rescues when they got debris caught in their motor and became ineffective, so they tied themselves to a tree.
Starflight made 13 flood-related rescues early Wednesday, including extracting a family of four from the second story of their home, and hoisting a man who was holding on to a metal rack on his submerged pickup truck.
“Some were on top of cars that you couldn't see because the cars were covered in water; some on top of houses, some in houses that you could not get to the top of the house, but the house was being flooded,” Starflight Senior Pilot Chuck Spangler said.
Starflight spent much of their time overnight in the community of Weir, along Berry Creek and the San Gabriel River. Pieces of asphalt from a road that washed away and debris in trees show just how high the water came, and how fast.
“Those water sources surround those victims in a matter of minutes; literally minutes,” Spangler said.
Thankfully, so did Starflight.
