Jackson police officers honored for helping man caught in flash flood

A Jackson motorist thought he could cross a low-water bridge during a recent flash flood, but instead found himself trapped in his pickup truck and swept a half-mile downstream.

Two Jackson police officers received meritorious service awards earlier this week in connection with the man’s rescue.

The incident happened the evening of Sept. 20 when the driver, identified only as a 60-year-old Jackson resident, attempted to drive his 2007 GMC Sierra across Mary Street in Jackson City Park at a point where the street crosses Hubble Creek.

“Signs there say the roadway is impassible during high water,” said Lt. Alex Broch, Jackson Police Department’s public information officer. Broch doesn’t know whether the driver didn’t see the signs or chose to ignore them. “All he said is that he thought he could make it across the low-water bridge,” Broch said.

Hubble Creek usually doesn’t encroach on traffic along Mary Street, but heavy rain that afternoon and early evening caused flash-flood conditions.

“There was a strong cluster of thunderstorms that stalled along a line from Chaffee to Jackson that night,” according to Michael York, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Paducah, Kentucky. Although he couldn’t say how much rain fell in Jackson that day, he did have reports of 6.9 inches within a two- or three-hour period in Chaffee and just more than 4.5 inches in Dutchtown. “We had quite a few (flooding) problems that day,” York said.

“I don’t remember how much rain we got that day, but we had a good downpour for an hour or an hour and a half by the time we got the call (about the truck being pushed down the creek),” Broch said. According to police records, he said it appears the driver was able to use his cellphone to call a friend as his truck was being swept downstream and the friend, in turn, called police.

“He said he was going under the Main Street bridge and then his phone went dead,” Broch said.

Officers Danny Brosnan and Kimberly Shuck were dispatched to search for the truck, finding it almost completely submerged on the north side of the Hubble Creek bridge along West Jackson Boulevard.

“His truck got hung up on a bridge post, which is when the water started coming into the truck and he (the driver) got out,” Broch reported.

“Brosnan and Shuck located the truck first then they found him (the driver) a little further downstream on the other side of the bridge,” Broch said. “He had grabbed on to some branches and roots and was hanging on by the time officers found him.”

Once the officers located the driver, Brosnan went into the water and helped keep the driver out of the current while they both clung to limbs and vines from the bank. Meanwhile, Shuck was able to relay information from Brosnan to police dispatchers and kept her partner and the driver in sight until rescue units could arrive.

“The driver was in the swift water for over 20 minutes” before being pulled to safety by Jackson fire and rescue personnel, according to Jackson chief of police James Humphreys. Although wet and shaken, the driver declined medical attention at the scene.

The chief presented commendations to Broch and Shuck earlier this week during a Jackson Board of Aldermen meeting.

“Both officers’ actions, especially officer Brosnan’s, were key to saving the driver’s life on this night,” Humphreys said in presenting the commendations. “Both showed commendable actions and performance of their duties as a police officer. Their actions that evening saved a citizen from serious physical injury or even death.”

Do you crave business news? Check out B Magazine, and the B Magazine email newsletter. Check it out at www.semissourian.com/newsletters to find out more.