Liane Heather Wood helped to save Megan J. Barr from drowning, Frankford, Ontario, February 6, 2013. Megan, 13, was trapped inside her family’s compact sport utility vehicle after a nighttime accident in which the vehicle entered the Trent River and, overturned, was carried a distance by the strong current. It lodged against a rock in water about 3.5 feet deep at a point about 13 feet from the bank, which at the scene was a retaining wall. Wood, 42, insurance broker, and her husband were alerted to the accident from nearby. With the air temperature at about 13 degrees, she descended a ladder that had been placed into the river at the wall and entered the 32-degree water. In the darkness, Wood waded about 33 feet to the passenger side of the vehicle, which was submerged at its front end. Unsuccessful in opening the front door, she returned to the ladder for a tool to break one of the vehicle’s windows. When she went back to the car, she fell but quickly regained her footing. Her husband, who was at the ladder, then descended into the river and waded to the car. Feeling their way along the vehicle in the darkness, Wood and her husband went to its rear end, finding that its hatch was opened. They called for Megan to move toward them, and she did so. Wood’s husband entered the rear of the vehicle, and he and Wood aided Megan from it to a point along its passenger side, where both Megan and Wood fell. As Wood held to the vehicle, unable to move on her own, her husband carried Megan to the ladder and then returned for her. He supported Wood as both waded back to the ladder and ascended it to safety. Megan required hospital treatment for minor injury, and Wood had symptoms of hypothermia and difficulty breathing, for which she later sought treatment. Both recovered.
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