NEW ORLEANS – A good Samaritan made a daring rescue Wednesday night, saving a truck driver, during Hurricane Francine, who may have been minutes away from drowning if they didn’t step in.
The rescue was captured by the NBC affiliate in New Orleans during their live coverage of the hurricane.
Reporter Jonah Gilmore saw the pickup truck going underwater at an underpass.
The driver had gone around the barricades and into the dangerous floodwaters.
Gilmore flagged a nearby police officer and before first responders got to the scene, Miles Crawford, who lived in the area saw what was happening on TV, and ran to the scene. He then ran back home to grab a hammer so he could break the truck’s window and get the driver out alive.
Crawford told the reporter his background as an ER nurse was a tremendous help.
“I’m used to high stress, high, high, you know, level of things on a daily basis,” he said.
Hurricane Francine knocked out power to half a million homes and businesses across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and parts of Florida.
She made landfall Wednesday in Terrebonne Parish, Louisana as a Category 2 hurricane with winds thrashing at 100 miles an hour.
By Thursday morning, Francine was much weaker -- a tropical depression with winds about 35 miles an hour.
Storm surge and flooding threats are still major concerns in some areas, according to the National Hurricane Center.