Off-duty Cocoa cop: Rescue wasn’t ‘special’

Cocoa Police Department Cpl. Kenneth Brackin arrived at his Titusville home after work Tuesday around midnight when he and his fiancée heard a loud bang.

He rushed outside to find a car submerged upside down in a retention pond after crashing into a fire hydrant.

While neighbors gathered around and called 911, Brackin emptied his pockets and jumped into the chesthigh water to save the two passengers inside the car.

“I really didn’t think about it too much,” he told reporters at a Wednesday afternoon press conference. “I knew somebody was in there, and I was like, ‘If I don’t get in there now, these people are going to die.’”

Brackin freed the two passengers after circling the vehicle to try and open one of the doors. It was an urgent effort, as Brackin described there being only inches of breathable air left in the car.

He was able to free both men, who police say suffered no serious injuries.

Titusville Police Department said in a press release the car landed in a pond at the intersection of Knox McRae Drive and Vacation Villas Lane. Brackin was already helping the victims when police officers arrived.

“Law Enforcement Officers are never truly offduty,” Titusville Deputy Chief Todd Hutchinson said. “They are always prepared to take action if needed.”

With or without his police training, Brackin said, he would have likely gotten into the pond anyway, as “any other normal person would do.”