Feb. 23, 2023 In his second water rescue in six months, Lincoln Police Sgt. Tu Tran waded into a golf course water hazard amid icy temperatures to rescue a motorist from her fast-sinking car after sliding off the road.
By Andrew Wegley Source Lincoln Journal Star, Neb. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
The police chief on Thursday heralded the quick actions of a Lincoln Police sergeant who jumped into a pond amid freezing temperatures Wednesday afternoon to help a Lincoln woman from her fast-submerging car.
Sgt. Tu Tran was the first responder to arrive at the pond — a water hazard on the golf course at Wilderness Ridge, near Yankee Hill Road and Executive Woods Drive, where a 27-year-old motorist had slid off the road and into the waterway at 4:40 p.m. Wednesday, Police Chief Teresa Ewins said.
It was 23 degrees at the time. With the wind chill, it felt like 4.
When Tran reached the scene, only the rear driver’s side window and the trunk of the woman’s Hyundai Elantra was visible, Ewins said. The front half of the sedan — along with the car’s driver — were submerged in the frigid water. And the car was sinking.
So Tran, a 14-year veteran of the department, took off his service belt and waded into the water, kicking off what would be his second water rescue in six months, Ewins said.
He reached the sedan and opened an unlocked rear door. He couldn’t see the 27-year-old below the water’s murky surface, but he reached into the Hyundai and felt the woman’s leg before grabbing it and pulling her from the car.
“His quick actions saved a life,” the police chief said.
Additional responders and bystanders who had gathered near the pond helped pull the woman to land before Lincoln Fire and Rescue crews took her by ambulance to a local hospital.
Her condition was unknown Thursday morning, Ewins said.
The fire department’s water rescue team later assisted in pulling the Hyundai from the pond.
For Tran, who has been with the department since 2009, Wednesday’s incident marked his second water rescue in less than six months following a similar situation in September, when he and two bystanders saved a driver from drowning after his pickup left the roadway and crashed into a pond in southeast Lincoln.
“These are things that our officers have done routinely through the years,” Ewins said Wednesday. “And they do it at the risk of their own lives.”
“Our officers aren’t gonna stop,” she added. “They don’t think of themselves first. They think of who’s in that car.”
In the aftermath of his efforts Wednesday, the sergeant drove home for a change of clothes, Ewins said.
Then, he went back to work.