Excerpt from cbsnews.com
ALT LAKE CITY — Police responding to a report from a fisherman about
an overturned car in an icy Utah river were stunned to discover an 18-month-old girl dangling in a car seat inside, unconscious but alive. The officers also say they heard a mysterious voice begging for help.
 |
| Lily Groesbeck was rescued after surviving 14 hours in freezing temperatures without foor or water. |
“Someone said ‘help me’ inside that car,” Spanish Fork Police Officer Tyler Beddoes said, according to CBS affiliate KUTV.
Officer Jared Warner told KSL he also heard a voice.
“(It)
wasn’t just in our heads,” Warner told KSL. “To me, it was plain as
day. I remember hearing a voice that didn’t sound like a child, just
saying ‘help me.'”
They found the baby in the back seat and a
woman dead in the front seat after flipping over the car. A firefighter
jumped into the river and cut the car-seat straps, freeing the baby who
was wearing only a flannel onesie and no hat or gloves.
Officers
then formed a line in the river and handed the cold child from one
person to the next until she was on the shoreline and in emergency
workers’ arms.
Two days later, the toddler was recovering at a
hospital, though authorities still don’t know exactly how she survived
hanging upside-down for nearly 14 hours in frigid temperatures with no
food or water.
“It’s heartbreaking. Was she crying most the night?” Beddoes said. “It’s a miracle. … She was needed for sure elsewhere.”
Beddoes, one of the officers involved in the rescue, on Monday recounted the ordeal.
Police
believe the crash occurred late Friday when the child’s mother,
25-year-old Lynn Groesbeck, struck a cement barrier on a bridge and
careened into the river in Spanish Fork, about 50 miles south of Salt
Lake City.
Groesbeck
had visited her parents in Salem and was about halfway back to her home
in Springville when it happened, Spanish Fork police Lt. Matt Johnson
said.
Investigators don’t know what caused the crash, he said.
There were no skid marks, and the midsize car had no signs of mechanical
failures.
Police don’t suspect drugs or alcohol as a factor but
were awaiting toxicology results. Groesbeck might have been tired or
distracted, Johnson said, adding that authorities weren’t ruling
anything out.
Even though the road that goes over the bridge gets
plenty of traffic, no one saw the wreck because the cement barrier
obstructed the view below, Johnson said.
If a fisherman hadn’t
chosen that river Saturday morning, it could have been several more
hours before the car was found, he said.
The overturned car was
perched on the bank and rocks. As the girl dangled inside, icy water
rushed just below her head through broken car windows. The temperatures
were near freezing throughout the night and through the morning.
“She must have been just out of the water enough to be getting oxygen,” Beddoes said.
When the four officers responded to the vehicle, they didn’t know how long it had been there or who was inside.
After freeing the girl from the car, responders rushed her to an ambulance and performed CPR, Beddoes said.
On Monday, Lily Groesbeck was in stable condition and improving, according to hospital officials. Beddoes said the girl was opening her eyes and doing well.
Lynn
Groesbeck was enrolled at Provo College with a goal of becoming a
medical assistant, her sister Jill Sanderson told the Deseret News.
Beddoes said the family has thanked him and the other officers for helping save Lily.
“Knowing that she was trapped in there 14 hours, the cold water running through car, just blows me away,” Beddoes said.
Source Article from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AscensionEarth2012/~3/J_hnjhxuR9A/officers-who-saved-baby-in-icy-river.html
Officers Who Saved Baby in Icy River Heard Mysterious "Voice"
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