Bob Cooley, a cruise passenger visiting Ketchikan from Texas, witnessed Thursday’s car crash that killed one pedestrian and sent the car and driver into Ketchikan Creek.
“She put her foot on the pedal, and that’s when my eyes zeroed in on her car,” Cooley said. “And then it went ‘bam’ and popped out over the curb.”
He says the driver pulled into a parking spot across the creek from Good Fortune Chinese restaurant and, in one fluid motion, seemed to go through it. The car went through the boardwalk — Cooley said he didn’t see it strike the cruise passenger from Indiana who died — and then broke through the wooden railing. It was roughly a ten foot drop to the rocks and creek below.
Hamilton Gelhar, who owns a business on Creek Street, took a video immediately after the crash. In it, onlookers shout as the smoking car sinks nose-first into the creek.
Gelhar recognized the driver of the vehicle as one of his neighbors, a fellow business owner on Creek Street.
“It was crazy. It was crazy. Everybody wanted to help, but they just couldn’t,” Cooley said.
Then Cooley saw a young man with a long, dark ponytail.
“He literally ran and just jumped into the water. I mean, he was amazing,” Cooley said.
The young man was 26-year-old Dylan Self, a server at the Chinese restaurant who was waiting for his shift to start.
“As soon as I saw her head go underwater, I knew she wasn’t gonna last more than 30 seconds before the inhale,” Self said. “I just scaled the rocks as fast as I could until I got to the car and then dove in.”
Self grabbed a rock and dove across the frigid, fast-moving creek. With both hands, he smashed the rear windshield. The glass cut a long gash in his arm.
Self said a friend yelled to him that the submerged driver side window was open. He fought the current to pull her through the window and on the top of the sinking car.
He started CPR, but he’d never done it before. People shouted instructions down from the crowd: “Go higher on her chest. Move up a bit. Check for obstructions.”
“By the time I pulled her out, she was already turning blue, really, really bad,” he said. “And then the water started kind of flowing up and out.”
He said the color in her face began to come back.
After the EMTs arrived and brought her to shore to continue CPR, Self found an ambulance to treat his bleeding arm. Later, he said he was surprised by how much strength he was able to conjure in the creek.
“I have zero endurance,” he said. “So also the adrenaline really helped.”
Cooley guessed the driver was probably underwater for about two minutes. He said another man jumped in to help but had to swim back to shore.
“It was literally that young man alone that saved that woman,” Cooley said. “He was a hero today.”
As of Friday morning, the driver was still in the hospital in critical condition but stable. Ketchikan Fire Chief Rick Hines said that the driver went into cardiac arrest, but they don’t know yet if that caused the crash or was a result of it.
Self also went to hospital to sew up his arm but was released the same day.
