Body camera footage shared by an Ohio police department shows the frightening moments after a woman accidentally drove her van into the Mahoning River.
According to authorites in Alliance, Ohio, the 24-year-old driver of the van fell asleep at the wheel on the way home from work on Nov. 22. Her car struck a guardrail and then crashed down over 10 feet into the frigid river. In the footage, officers can be seen forming a human chain down the steep bank to help an officer who had jumped into the water and swam toward the sinking van. The half-submerged officer begins to panic in the cold water, but the cop whose body cam we are watching calms him down and guides him through smashing out the window so that the driver can escape. After she climbs out of the window, the officer whose camera we're seeing pulls her up on to the bank.
Police say that almost immediately after she was pulled from the van, the vehicle fully submerged in the river. Both sides of the story were eventually made available. In addition to the footage, the 911 call placed to local police after the driver woke up was shared with local news stations. In that clip, listeners can hear the first moments of the driver's realization that she's in the river all the way up to the point that police arrive.
The woman was taken to the hospital and released shortly thereafter with minor injuries. Her van was removed from the river the next day.
