A passerby jumped into a frigid Florida pond to save a pregnant woman from her sinking car recently – giving her the opportunity to safely birth her baby hours later, according to authorities and those at the center of the riveting rescue story.
As she told it to local news outlet WPTV, Shedly Apollon of Florida’s Port St Lucie community was 34 weeks pregnant, with pre-eclampsia, and driving to a prenatal massage arranged for her by her fiance on the morning of 6 February when she began feeling dizzy. Apollon, who was also celebrating her birthday that day, stopped to try to let it pass before resuming her trip. When she realized she wasn’t feeling better, she attempted to pull over again.
Only that time she inadvertently plunged headlong into a pond.
“I started to feel some water on my feet, so I started to panic a little,” Apollon said to WPTV of the moments when her vehicle started sinking into the pond.
Fortunately for her, Logan Hayes, of nearby Sebastian, was running errands in that area at the time. He saw Apollon’s car barrel into the pond and – despite temperatures in the low 40s fahrenheit as well as an active cold weather advisory – he instinctively dove into the water.