Jackson County Sheriff’s Department Officer Mark Holt speaks about his rescue of a woman trapped in her vehicle in floodwaters on Saturday in the eastern part of the county. His comments came during a news conference Monday at the sheriff’s department in Brownstown.
Aubrey Woods | The Tribune
BROWNSTOWN — An off-duty police officer who rescued a woman trapped in her vehicle in floodwaters Saturday in the eastern part of Jackson County contends he is not a hero, although some might disagree with him.
“I was just doing my job,” Jackson County Officer Mark Holt said Monday afternoon during a news conference at the sheriff’s department.
Doing his job meant entering cold floodwaters up to his waist, pulling 40-year-old Jennifer Colvin of North Vernon from her submerged vehicle, dragging her to safety and driving her to Schneck Medical Center in a matter of minutes.
Colvin was treated for possible hypothermia at the Seymour hospital and released later that night, Holt said.
He said he was returning to his Seymour home after refereeing an IHSAA basketball game Saturday afternoon at Providence High School when he heard a dispatch call about a woman trapped inside a car in floodwaters in the Chestnut Ridge area.
Despite the fact he was off duty, Holt didn’t hesitate to respond to the call that came into the sheriff’s department dispatch center at 5:21 p.m. He was driving north on U.S. 31 at the time and wasn’t far from the woman and her vehicle in the 9000 block of East County Road 50N.
“I was less than half a mile from that intersection when the call came out, so I responded,” Holt said.
He said it’s not an area where he generally would have been, and he believes it was divine intervention he happened to be there at that time.
“I was at the right place at the right time,” he said. “Everything worked out to putting me there at that particular time.”
Holt said being familiar with that low-lying area, he knew that generally, the water rises rapidly there when it rains.
“I got there and I don’t see the vehicle on the roadway,” he said. “So I looked to the north of the roadway, and the vehicle was submerged.”
Holt said because the front of the 2019 Honda CRV was pointed down, water was up on the windshield and covering the doors.
“I asked dispatch if they could contact her and find out if there was anybody else in the vehicle, and they said they had lost contact with her,” he said. “So I jumped out of my vehicle, took my coat off, took my keys out of my pocket, laid my phone on the hood and went in the water. I heard her banging on the window and screaming, so I jumped in. Immediately, it was up above my waist, the current.”
Holt said it took him less than 4 minutes to get to the scene on the gravel area where there are just fields, and time was of essence.
“For the water to be up to her neck in that short amount of time, I knew we didn’t have much time,” he said.
Holt said when he made it to the car, which was 15 to 20 yards away from his own vehicle, he tried to break the window with a glass breaker, but he broke that tool instead.
“I resorted to trying to punch the window out,” he said. “I didn’t try to punch through it, but just enough to shatter it. That didn’t work, so I just grabbed the door and pulled as hard as I could, and then it budged and the current caught it and pulled it open. I just reached in and pulled her out.”
After pulling Colvin to safety, Holt placed her into his police car to warm her. He then drove her to Schneck because the ambulance had been dispatched to the wrong side of the floodwaters.
Officers with the county, Crothersville Police Department and Seymour Police Department escorted him and blocked intersections, Holt said.
“Deputy Holt’s quick response kept this incident from being a lot worse,” Sheriff Rick Meyer said.
Water rescues are not uncommon in Jackson County with the East Fork White River and Muscatatuck River often spilling over their banks, especially during the late winter and spring.
This was Holt’s fourth one and the most dramatic, he said.
“It’s reaction and training with a life to be saved,” he said. “I’m always on duty. I couldn’t stand by knowing what she was going through. It was a matter of time.”
Investigators were able to determine Colvin had driven into floodwaters and her vehicle had just been pulled off the road, Holt said.
Motorists can be cited for driving into floodwaters, but the lesson learned in this case is going to be much greater than any fine could be, he said.
Those assisting included county officers Kevin Settle and Aaron Wilkins and Reserve Officer Michael Maxie and Crothersville Assistant Chief Jonathon Tabor and Reserve Officer Derrick Minton. Personnel with the Crothersville-Vernon Township Fire Department also responded to the scene.
