A witness had come down to the river in South Windsor after breakfast and saw a dark object in the distance stuck in the water, and a flicker of light in the window alerted him to the fact that someone was trapped inside.
“I called the police and they were here in a matter of minutes,” David Malone said.
The ute got stuck in rising waters in South Windsor. (9News) Three policemen jumped to save him. (9 News)
“They didn’t even think twice, they jumped in and had their necks high in the water.
“I saw a light passing through my back. They must have been able to prove they’re inside.”
Police, two of them test officers, flew into the water to save the man who was trapped inside the ute as the river rose around him.
“He said he only had six inches between the rising water and the roof and the pressure against the car door, which he couldn’t open,” said probation officer Lindsay Morgan.
Strange view of Sydney beach
One of the officers grabbed a stone while the other two used their clubs to smash the car.
“You don’t know what’s underwater, crossing fences that you couldn’t even see … at one point we were swimming across a lake,” test agent Ryan Blume-Poulton said.
In the video, police officers can be heard telling the man that they are about to break the window.
Officers tried to break the window to remove the man. (9 News)
“Okay, I’ll break the window, look the other way and close my eyes,” they said.
They tried to break the window without luck before noticing that the door was cracked.
“I noticed the door had cracked, I had tried to open it, enough to put our fingertips on and we managed to open the door,” one of the officers said.
After seven minutes, police were able to drag the man to a safe place. (9 News)
The rescue took seven frightening minutes before police took the man to a safe place.
“They would definitely have drowned,” Malone said.
“We had to get to him, that’s why we’re there, that’s why we signed up, he needed us and there was no one else,” one agent said.