VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Good Samaritans jumped into the cold water behind Bubba’s Restaurant along Shore Drive Friday afternoon to help rescue a driver trapped inside a sinking SUV.
The vehicle went into the water behind the restaurant, which is near the Lesner Bridge in Virginia Beach. Virginia Beach Police confirmed they received a report of a single-vehicle crash around 1:17 p.m. in the 3300 block of Shore Drive.
Video provided by a Bubba’s employee shows the dramatic rescue unfold.
You can see people surrounding the sinking vehicle, trying to break the glass and rescue the woman inside.
“The car started to sink, and then two of these guys, these citizens, heroines, just lifted this person out of the water as the car was gone,” said Dan Baker, a manager at Bubba’s. “I mean, they just lifted this person out of the water. It was crazy. It was surreal.”
Baker explained he heard a noise and looked out the window and saw the car in the water. He said people from a nearby dock and one person who was dining inside Bubba’s stepped into action and jumped in after the car. That person was Jeremy Way.
“Just happened to be at the right place at the right time,” Way said.
The aviation rescue swimmer has been in the Navy for 17 years. He said he was having lunch with a friend at Bubba’s when he first heard the crash.
“I’d already been taking my phone and my wallet, my knife out of my pocket, and once I confirmed there’s there was a person, I just dove right in,” Way said.
He, along with three others, bravely jumped in despite the frigid temperatures.
Way explained when he swam up to the SUV, the woman behind the wheel seemed to be upset.
“I told her to ‘unlock it, unlock it’. And she was like, ‘No, I’m not unlocking it. I don’t want to be here,'” Way said. “I told her, like ‘We’ve all been there, just unlock it.’ She no longer could unlock it. She tried picking it with her fingers and tried to unlock the door, but it wasn’t working.”
People from the dock were throwing items to help. The other rescuers could be seen trying to break the windshield and back window.
The man in the back managed to climb in and crawl through the entire vehicle to help get her out, just as the car begins to sink.
“The car was completely underwater,” Way said. “She finally came out, and I did … what I’ve always been taught, some rescue swimmer techniques, threw her in a cross-chest carry, threw on my hip and swam towards the pylons,” Way said. “The other gentleman, I don’t know what he does or what he did, but he’s the real reason she’s there.”
Everyone was rescued from the water, the driver included.
“I was holding her the whole time, trying to console her, tell her that it’s OK, like everything happens for a reason, like mental health is no joke,” Way said. “We’ve all been there and got her out of the water, got myself out of the water, out of the boat, rather, and that was it. EMS took care of her after that point,” Way said.
Way explained that his motto in the military is ‘so others may live’ – and he’s grateful to have lived by that in the moment Friday.
“That’s the way I’ve been raised, both in in the military and out of the military, help whenever you can,” Way said.
Virginia Beach Police confirmed the driver and two Good Samaritans were taken to a local hospital to be treated for injuries not considered serious.
Virginia Beach Police and first responders were on scene throughout the afternoon investigating the circumstances of the crash. The car was pulled out of the water just before 5 p.m.
Just last month, a vehicle ended up in the water in the same vicinity, near Chick’s Oyster Bar Restaurant in Virginia Beach.