A North Carolina man made a “calculated risk,” jumping into fast-moving, Helene-swollen waters to save a woman because he “couldn’t watch her die.”
Eddie Hunnell, 57, was in Grassy Creek ahead of son Austin Hunnell’s Saturday wedding when he saw floodwaters picking up Lesley Worth’s home.
Video footage captured onlookers standing on the banks of New River, screaming, “Are you there?” and “Jump!”
It soon became clear that Worth was stuck and Hunnell said his mind raced through the options.
“When it was happening, I was trying to make a calculated risk. How do we save her?” said Hunnell, who lives about 200 miles away in Holly Springs, just outside Raleigh.
He jumped in, to the audible gasps of onlookers, with a life vest and a rope in his hands.
“I grew up swimming on a swim team. I was a lifeguard (and I’m in) OK shape and I just couldn’t watch her die,” he told NBC affiliate WRAL in an interview that aired Monday. “I felt like I needed to do that.”
It wasn’t until Hunnell went to bed that the event’s enormity struck him.
“It didn’t really hit me until I lay down in bed that night and about had a panic attack, but I didn’t see another option” he added.
Worth and her husband lost everything in the flood but were grateful to be alive. They were guests at the wedding rehearsal dinner.
