Two men, dog rescued from top of SUV in creek
Two men and a dog were rescued from the top of an SUV that was swept into a creek in Royal Saturday morning after the vehicle went off a roadway, firefighters involved in the rescue effort said.
Piney Fire Chief Scott Miser said that LifeNet checked the men, but did not transport them from the scene.
Hot Springs Fire Department Shift Commander Gary Hawthorn said members of the department’s swift water
rescue team responded to assist Piney Fire Department and the Garland County Sheriff’s Department in the rescue.
Hawthorn said the vehicle had left an unpaved, country road. “We could see where it went in,” he said, but they could not see where the vehicle had gone.
“Had to put our boat in and find them,” he said. “The vehicle had washed a couple of hundred yards down the stream.”
One of the people inside the vehicle reportedly called in the emergency. Hawthorn said it was the sheriff department’s opinion that one of the people had a cellphone and “talked for a minute” before the phone got wet and quit working.
The incident occurred near 175 Pinegrove Lane. The call was received at 7:38 a.m. Saturday. Miser said 12 firefighters from Piney responded to the scene, and Hawthorn said a total of seven personnel from the Hot Springs Fire Department responded.
Miser said they had been on scene for “almost an hour” before the men were rescued.
Both Miser and Hawthorn said the vehicle was in dangerous water. Miser said they were “200 feet from calm water, right out in the middle” of the stream.
The vehicle was not pulled out of the water. Miser said they will “have to wait a few days to get it out.” He said that with the stream in the condition that it is in, trying to remove the vehicle would be “too dangerous.”