“I was just like, ‘I can’t let none of these folks die,'" Corion Evans told WLOX.
When a vehicle crashed off the I-10 boat launch and into a river, a brave Mississippi teen heroically saved four people.
Authorities told WLOX13 that a vehicle with three teenage girls inside went into the Pascagoula River around 20-feet away from the shore before it started to sink.
Sixteen-year-old Corion Evans told WLOX he tossed his shoes, shirt and phone and jumped in.
“I was just like, ‘I can’t let none of these folks die. They need to get out the water’. So, I just started getting them,” he told WOLX. “I wasn’t even thinking about nothing else.”
Evans, a high school student, told WOLX he’s been swimming since he was about 3 years old and used his skills to keep the girls above water and swim with them at the same time.
Officer Gary Mercer of Moss Point Police swam out to assist, but he began to drown.
“I turned around. I see the police officer,” Evans told WOLX. “He’s drowning. He’s going underwater, drowning, saying, ‘Help!' So, I went over there. I went and I grabbed the police officer and I’m like swimming him back.”
Chief Brandon Ashley released a statement to WLOX saying, “The police department and I commend Mr. Evans’s bravery and selflessness he displayed by risking his own safety to help people in danger. If Mr. Evans had not assisted, it could have possibly turned out tragically instead of all occupants rescued safely.”
One of the victims, Cora Watson, showed her appreciation on Facebook saying Evans, “saved my life right before my last breath.”
The three girls and Officer Mercer were all brought to the hospital to recover following the incident.
