Navy Diver Third Class Thomas Parhiala, of Salem, New Hampshire, and Navy Diver Third Class John McLeod, of Wiscasset, Maine, were on a quick trip to McLeod\u2019s hometown to pick up his motorcycle when they saw the Jeep suddenly swerve off the highway.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was getting dark and it was one of those surreal experiences as we both saw the Cherokee go into the water about 400 yards in front of us,\u201d Parhiala, who was driving, told Navy Times. \u201cWe both kind of looked at each other and said \u2018did you see that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Nothing more needed to be said. The men stopped the vehicle, ran down the sharp 20-foot embankment and went headfirst into the water, swimming out to the vehicle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe vehicle was in the water and sinking, but the passenger window was either open or gone and the driver was just floating between the front seat and back seat,\u201d Parhiala said<\/p>\n
While pulling the man from the vehicle, the sailors looked around to make sure there weren’t others who needed help.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe started to come to, so I started screaming at him asking if anyone else was in there,\u201d McLeod said. Both recalled the driver, Jonathan Marr, 35, of Thomaston, Maine, saying \u201cno.\u201d <\/p>\n
But to be sure, Parhiala stayed to look around. McLeod, meanwhile, swam Marr to shore.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The rescue only took a few minutes from start to finish, but by the time they were back on shore, additional motorists had stopped, and some had called for help.<\/p>\n
Neither have met or talked to Mann since the incident, and the divers say they don\u2019t believe they did anything special. Their first priority was taking care of the driver, they said, then getting themselves warm.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just did what had to be done,\u201d Parhiala said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t anything special, we just happened to be the first ones on the scene.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Well done, gentlemen, damn well done! This old helo rescue swimmer is proud of you both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Navy Times is reporting a pair of Navy divers were in the right place at the … Navy Divers Thomas Parhiala and John McLeod, Saving the World<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[286],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-search-and-rescue-navy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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