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REXBURG — A typical LDS leadership meeting took an unusual turn Sunday night that resulted in two leaders saving teenage girls in a submerged car.
Around 15 men from the Rexburg South Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were gathered at the chapel on 8000 South in Archer Sunday, EastIdahoNews.com reported. A stake is a large geographic region that includes multiple congregations for the LDS church.
They were discussing a variety of issues when one of the leaders, who is an on-call volunteer for the Madison Fire Department, interrupted the speaker around 6:10 p.m.
“He said he just got a notification that there was something going on down the road,” said Joe Palmer, a leader at the meeting. “He made it sound like someone was pinned underneath a car and said we could get there faster than the ambulance.”
Everyone in the group jumped from their seats and ran to their vehicles.
“We were flying down there, expecting that a bunch of us would pick up the car off the person,” Palmer said.
Palmer and two other men, Kory Wilcox and Joe Campbell, led the way in Palmer’s pickup truck. They arrived at the scene before everyone else in their group and found the vehicle was actually upside down in a canal full of water.
“We pulled up to the address and saw the commotion," Palmer said. "I ran up to assess the situation and, before I knew it, Kory and Joe went blowing by me on either side and jumped right in."
Two teenage girls were trapped inside the car, which was quickly filling up with water. Some neighbors and a teenage boy, who had managed to escape from inside the vehicle, were working to get the girls out.
“People were hollering, ‘There are people in there! There are people in there!’ and we just jumped in without thinking or talking much,” Wilcox said. “It was dark, and the water was cold, but we just did it.”
Wilcox, who is 6-feet 8 inches tall, said the water was high enough to cover his waist. Inside the vehicle, only about 8 inches of air space were left, he added.
“They jumped onto the door and ripped it wide open,” Palmer said. “They ripped the first girl out and they thought that was it. Someone said there was another person in there, and they ripped her out too.”
Wilcox and Campbell helped the girls to safety and climbed out of the water.
They then got back into Palmer’s pickup truck and, with wet pants and water squishing in their shoes, returned to the church building to continue their meeting.
“The entire ordeal took less than five minutes,” Wilcox said. “On the way back to the church, we passed the ambulance and the sheriff deputies.”
Wilcox and Campbell acted so quickly that many of the other young men leaders had no idea what they had done until they saw their wet clothing back at the meetinghouse.
“Kory and Joe pulled them out of the water and the canal before the rest of our group had even showed up,” Palmer said.
Madison County Sheriff Lt. Dave Stoddard says the vehicle ended up in the water after the driver became distracted and veered off the road. She ended up hitting a bridge, which caused the car to roll upside down into the canal.
“A teenage male passenger was able to get out of the vehicle but two female teenagers remained inside,” Stoddard said. “Once they were pulled from the car, they were checked on scene. None of them had any injuries and no property, other than the vehicle, was damaged.”
The leaders finished their meeting at the church and Wilcox returned home to explain to his wife why he had wet shoes and pants.
He said he and Campbell were simply helping and aren’t looking for any special attention.
“Everyone was just jumping in and doing what they could to help,” Wilcox said. “I’m just glad we could play a part of it.”
"Those two were awesome. They were killer," Palmer said. "They deserved to be honored.”
