A crash in Sage Creek Junction, Utah killed two people and injured one on Wednesday morning. (Canva)
HERRIMAN, Utah — The fast actions of an off-duty police officer saved the lives of a woman and two of her young children earlier this week.
Danielle Bradshaw, a mother of eight is recovering after nearly drowning at Blackridge Reservoir on Wednesday.
The incident happened when Bradshaw and her daughters, ages 2 and 5, were on an inflatable raft. She tried to pull some garbage from the reservoir but the movement caused the raft to flip sending them into the water.
“When I retrieved the litter, I readjusted on the tube and it flipped,” Bradshaw told KSL TV‘s Brittany Tait.
“My girls panicked because they didn’t have life jackets on. My husband was on his way to the reservoir with the jackets. But we tipped and were dumped in the water unexpectedly,” Bradshaw said.
Bradshaw kept her younger daughter afloat but her 5-year-old was trapped under the raft.
That’s when an off-duty officer — who was at the reservoir with his family — jumped in, bringing all three to shore. Bradshaw went into cardiac arrest from water intake and the officer performed CPR, saving her life.
Bradshaw’s husband Lance Bradshaw was on his way with the life jackets when he received a distressing call. He told KSL TV, “She [his daughter] was screaming and crying. ‘Mom is drowning and she can’t breathe.”
The Bradshaws said that the rescue was nothing short of a miracle.
Brittany Tait contributed to the reporting of this story.