DOUGLAS, Mich. — Thursday, a truck ended up in the Kalamazoo River.
FOX 17 is told the incident was the result of a medical emergency.
The man inside the truck, a 55-year-old from South Haven, miraculously survived the ordeal.
“Not a scratch on him," Good Samaritan Max Klemm said.
FOX 17 spoke with two young men who rushed to the man's aide, as they recounted the details.
Max Klemm and Austin Waalkes were working their summer jobs near the Red Dock in Douglas. Klemm works at the Red Dock. Waalkes works for Retro Boat Rentals.
The power flickered and then went out inside the Red Dock, and everyone left the building to check out what had happened.
On its way towards the river, the truck took the power out, hitting a pole.
Klemm and Waalkes saw the truck in the river and knew what they needed to do next. The pair grabbed a pontoon boat from Retro Boat Rentals that wasn't being used and luckily had the keys in the ignition.
“Pretty insane, yeah,” Austin Waalkes said.
They floored it to the truck. There was already a man in bass boat there, trying to break the passenger window with a knife. That wasn't working.
They needed something heavy to bust out the back window.
Noticing the fire extinguisher in the pontoon, Waalkes tossed it to Klemm.
“I hopped onto that guy's boat, onto the truck’s bumper, and just threw it as hard as I could, hoping I wasn’t going to miss,” Klemm said.
The man in the truck was out of it, Klemm says. They had to yank him out of the car, with the help of another Good Samaritan.
“We had to climb in there and yank him out as hard as we possibly could. The second we did that, the car filled, and went down like a rock,” Klemm said.
With seconds to spare, the man's life was also spared.
“I hope to inspire people to do something else like that. I hope that if I was ever in a situation like that someone else in my position would help,” Klemm said.
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