Four people rescued from car that plunged into DeKalb river
Firefighters rescued two men and two children from a car that ran off a DeKalb County road and into the Yellow River Tuesday night.
Channel 2 Action News reported that the children were taken to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston for treatment of minor to moderate injuries following the incident, which happened along Norris Lake Road in the Norris Lake community near Stone Mountain.
When firefighters arrived, the four had already gotten out of the submerged car.
“We saw them on top of the car,” DeKalb fire Capt. Eric Jackson told Channel 2. “We threw them a line and we stretched out one of our ladders and helped them over to shore.”
Terrance Cooksey told Channel 2 that a friend was driving when the car hydroplaned on the wet road and slid off the road and into the river.
“My first instinct was to get out of the car,” Cooksey said.
“I got out of the car and grabbed my 8-year-old stepdaughter,” he told Channel 2. “I had to go back in two or three times. I had to break the back window out to get my daughter out.”
The 8-year-old girl, Amunique Samuels, was treated for minor injuries at the hospital and released. Cooksey’s 5-year-old daughter, Jenesis Sanders, was on a ventilator Wednesday after ingesting a large amount of water, according to Channel 2.
“She was up under the water for so long,” Cooksey said.
He is thankful.
“God is good,” he told Channel 2. “Both of them are alive. I’m alive.”
A wrecker pulled the car out of the river Wednesday morning, and police told Channel 2 that no charges would be filed in the accident.
