PARK TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Kevin MacLeod and his wife, who live in a quiet neighborhood near Lake Macatawa, woke up Sunday morning to a knock on the door.
"I came down to look, and I just saw, like, a little face right here," he remembers. "So I came out, and there's this little girl standing about where I am now, with one shoe on a bare foot, and I go, that's not right."
"Something's not right" is a thought McLeod would repeat many times that morning.
The girl told him she and her sister spent the night on a porch at a nearby house, after their father had driven into the lake.
MacLeod and his wife, Maribeth Van Hecke, instantly ushered the girls inside, draping them in blankets and dry socks, and called 911.
Both girls were barefoot, MacLeod remembers. Police confirm they are only 8 and 10-years-old.
"They mentioned that they went into the water from a car, and I was like, something is not right here. Something has happened that led them to being here," he says.
He and Van Hecke did what they could to keep them warm, trying to take care of them without overwhelming the girls with questions. He says the girls were in shock, but level-headed.
MacLeod wonders how many doors the girls knocked on before one opened. He says most of the people who own houses on Lake Macatawa don't live there in the winter, so many of the houses in the area were empty.
"I think they came out of the water, and it was just dark here," he says. "I asked them if they saw our Christmas tree, and they said they did. And they saw the cars in the driveway. And I wonder if they had knocked on the door in the morning. And maybe we didn't hear. I don't know. I don't really want to think about if that's true or not."
Meanwhile, officials searched Lake Macatawa for the car, which was pulled from the lake around 2:00 that afternoon, with police saying a body was found inside.
Officials later confirmed the man inside the car was the driver and the father of the children.
The girls were taken to the hospital, to be evaluated after cold exposure. A responding official from the Ottawa County Sheriff's Office said MacLeod's actions might have been life-saving.
"I think what they did, helping those girls, partly saved their lives because of the cold exposure that they had," said Lt. Westveer.
MacLeod, however, says he and his wife did what anyone else would have done in a similar situation, and they're just glad they could help.
"They had a tough night. Today will be tough. Tomorrow will be tough. And they're probably going to have a tough time for a while. I hope that the people who need to be there for them will be there."
ORIGINAL STORY: Dive teams pull car from Lake Macatawa after two kids show up to home for help
