A routine drive home turned into a split-second rescue when a Florida man stopped to save a mother and her three young children after their vehicle crashed and overturned into a canal, trapping the family upside down in the water.
The incident took place last Sunday in Indiantown, where a mother was driving a Jeep with her children ages 8, 2, and just 4 months when the vehicle suddenly veered off the road and flipped into a canal hidden behind thick brush.
Casey Curtis was driving home from work when he noticed something was wrong. “There was somebody behind me I noticed, driving. Then, all of a sudden, I looked up, and they seemed to be accelerating and drove off the side of the road,” Curtis said.
Curtis immediately pulled over, turned his vehicle around, and called 911. Following the tire tracks, he reached the edge of the canal, where he could hear children screaming from inside the submerged Jeep.
Without hesitation, he climbed down to the overturned vehicle. “I got to the car, opened up the door, and there were three kids sitting there, staring at me, helpless,” Curtis said.
Curtis carried each child out of the vehicle and placed them safely on the canal bank. Inside the Jeep, the children’s mother, later identified as Shyenique Wilkins, was still strapped into her seat and unresponsive, with her head submerged underwater.
“I lifted the mom’s head up out of the water, and she wasn’t breathing,” Curtis said. “I gave her a breath, and as soon as I gave her a breath, she started breathing again.”
First responders soon arrived and assisted in extracting Wilkins from the vehicle. The mother and her three children were transported to Lawnwood Medical Center for emergency treatment.
Family members later confirmed that all three children were physically unharmed. Wilkins, however, remained hospitalized on a ventilator as of Tuesday afternoon. Investigators say she suffered a seizure moments before the crash.
Reflecting on the rescue, Curtis said timing made all the difference. “There was nobody around, and there definitely would not have been anybody that would have seen this car for who knows how long. Those kids would not have been able to open that door or bust the window out, so there’s no way of them surviving,” he said.
Curtis has since asked the community to keep Wilkins in their thoughts and prayers as she continues her recovery. A GoFundMe campaign has been launched to help the family cover mounting medical expenses.
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