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 Ken Ruinard Independent-Mail Donnitta Burns of Piedmont tries to warm up in a car after diving into the Saluda River to rescue a man who drove his black pickup truck into the chilly water Wednesday. Ms. Burns revived him with cardio-pulmonary resuscitation until a helicopter rescue unit could take him to the hospital.
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Woman saves motorist from river
By Charmaine Smith
Independent-Mail
November 24, 2004
The challenge of rescuing a man whose truck flew off S.C. 86 and landed in the middle of the Saluda River didn’t slow a Piedmont woman passing by Wednesday.
Donnitta Burns of Piedmont saw several men standing on the highway’s bridge over the Saluda River and didn’t hesitate to pull over.
"I told the girls I was riding with, ‘If there’s someone in the water, I’m going in,’ " Ms. Burns said. "I didn’t think about it. I just went in."
Ms. Burns threw her boots off and dove off the bank in shorts and a T-shirt. She reached the truck in the middle of the river and pulled the tall, burly man out. She put him on the roof of the truck.
A stranger to Ms. Burns, the wounded man wasn’t breathing when she pulled him out of the truck. She said she started to resuscitate him, and it worked.
"All he was hollering was, ‘Oh Lord!’ " Ms. Burns said. "He was hurting."
Two Greenville County firefighters from the Piedmont station, Jason Thompson and Byron Wynn, then helped Ms. Burns pull the man to shore. The man’s name was not known late Wednesday. But eyewitnesses and rescuers on the scene were applauding Ms. Burns for her impromptu heroics. The man was flown to Greenville Memorial Hospital.
"All she did was throw those shoes off and she was in the water," said Joan Chastain, who also stopped to inspect the crash. "She was the bravest person I’d ever seen."
The wreck happened at about 4:15 p.m., just as afternoon traffic started to get busier along S.C. 86. No one else was in the truck, described by Ms. Burns as small and black. Divers from Anderson and Greenville counties arrived on scene, along with the Piedmont firefighters and the Pelzer rescue squad.
People wanting a peek at the scene lined the bridge and the river’s banks. By nightfall, about 200 people had gathered along the curvy highway.
But there were few details about how the truck landed in the water. South Carolina Highway Patrol spokesman Lance Cpl. Dan Marsceau had not received an official report on the crash when reached by telephone late Wednesday.
Greenville County Emergency Medical Services Lt. Eric Lutz said divers hooked the truck to a wrecker and pulled it out of the water around 6:30 p.m. He said the river’s waters are about 6-feet deep at its center, where the truck had landed. The truck was about 75 to 80 feet from the shoreline — submerged just enough so that onlookers could see its roof from the bridge’s railings.
"It landed upright and had pretty significant front end damage," Lt. Lutz said.
Charmaine Smith can be reached at (864) 260-1269 or by e-mail at smithca@IndependentMail.com.