By Mitch Hotts
The Macomb Daily, Mount Clemens, Mich.
CLINTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A police officer is being called a hero for his role in saving a motorist whose car had crashed into a retention pond in the Harbors Apartment complex on New Year’s Eve.
According to a social media post, the incident happened about 1:50 a.m. at the apartment complex on Bayview Avenue near Hall Road when police dispatch received several calls about a car in the retention pond. Callers said there appeared to be at least one person inside the vehicle.
When officers arrived, they saw an SUV in the middle of the pond and a male in the driver’s seat. They quickly determined it was floating on the surface of the water, officers said in the post.
Sgt. Ryan Bates saw the SUV’s front end had started to slowly sink and came up with a game plan to remove the motorist before the vehicle completely submerged.
He entered the freezing waters and swam over to the SUV. When he reached the vehicle driver’s side door, he saw the driver moving around in the car but not coming toward the open driver side window.
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Bates yelled to the man to climb out of the car, but the driver was not responding. The car began to rapidly sink and the open window was almost completely submerged when Bates reached into the car and pulled the driver under the water and out of the car.
He was able to stabilize the driver on a lifejacket and held on to a rescue rope as other officers pulled both men to safety. As soon as police had extracted the driver, the vehicle sank to the bottom of the pond and was completely submerged.
“We are extremely proud of the actions taken by all officers of Platoon C, but without the heroic actions of Sgt. Bates the driver may have suffered a fatal outcome,” the department said in the Facebook post.
According to his LinkedIn account, Bates joined the Clinton Township Police Department in 2015. Eight years later, he was promoted to sergeant. Prior to that, he worked in security forces for the U.S. Air Force .
The pond rescue was the second one in three days in Macomb County .
On the night of Dec. 28 , Chesterfield Township police rescued an elderly woman after she crashed into a retention pond in the Walmart shopping center parking lot in the area of Hall Road and Gratiot Avenue .
Police said the driver, who is in her 80s, found herself in her vehicle that was rapidly submerging into the pond. Numerous police officers responded to the area and were able to pull the woman to safety.
Police rescue elderly woman whose vehicle crashed into Hall Road pond
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