Rescued nurse returns to work
Published: September 20, 2004
A 23-year-old nurse plucked from the roof of her nearly flood submerged car Friday went to work Saturday to help Alzheimer’s patients.
But Cassie Uzmack, of Ash Drive in the township’s Bairdford section, acknowledged that firefighters in a borrowed boat saved her life.
Across the township at the village of Russellton, two men rescued people from stalled cars, then within the hour had to be led to safety by intrepid firefighters using rope, skill and determination.
In both cases, flash flooding threatened life.
Cassie was driving home Friday along Route 910 toward her home at about 7 p.m. Friday when her car was suddenly hit by water from Deer Creek.
Her car’s engine and lights went dead and she frantically called for help. By then, the car floated about 30-feet and wedged against a tree above the raging creek.
Screaming into her cell phone, Cassie told her parents her fire engine red sports car wouldn’t start and she was locked in by electric doors and windows and the water was rising. She pleaded for her dad for help. “She was screaming,” said her mother, Nancy Heider.
“It was the worst feeling in the world. We didn’t know exactly where she was and the car was filling up. We jumped into my truck and told her to call 911 again,” said step-father Dave Heider.
It was all happening too fast. The water was getting deeper and she couldn’t get out.
Then Cassie turned the key again.
This time the driver’s window ever so slowly opened just a little. It was enough. The 100-pound Cassie squeezed through and clambered to the roof of her Hyundai Tiburon.
“It was horrible. I was just waiting for them to get me out. And I was freezing in the rain,” said the nurse who works at the Rebecca Residence, Allison Park.
“She was a very lucky young lady,” said West Deer No. 3 Fire Company 2nd Assistant Chief Mark Staub. “If she hadn’t stopped where she did, she probably wouldn’t be with us now,” he said quietly during a break at the station.
“When we got there, the water was about 5-feet deep and it was up to the windows. It was dangerous,” said 2nd assistant engineer Nate Pearsall.
“I had put the call out to two places to borrow a boat and to speed it up. We’d take the first one that arrived,” said Chief George Billet.
Fire Capt. Frank McCorkle and fireman Marty Pennington among those on the flat-bottomed aluminum boat and West Deer No. 2 assistant chief Dean Irvine carried Cassie to a waiting ambulance.
Cassie was on a break Saturday afternoon and took two minutes to thank her rescuers over and over and explain how frightened she was.
“She said she’d buy them the biggest basket of cheer she could find,” Nancy said.
Russellton rescues
Russell E. Montgomery, of Russellton, and Chuck Aymar , of Tarentum, weren’t thinking about cheer when they helped occupants out of two cars along Little Deer Creek Road - also known as Russellton Road - Friday evening.
An unidentified Curtisville woman’s car stalled and she needed help to get out, said Montgomery, who has operated a tax preparation office there for the past 25 years.
He said Aymar waded out to help three screaming children from Acmetonia and their grandmother from Sarver trapped in her black Mercury Cougar.
In a phone call from Sarver, Marie Troutman said her daughter and son-in-law are vacationing at Myrtle Beach and the grandmothers were taking turns picking up the children at school. Troutman made stops at three schools and was driving home when traffic snarls led her to Russellton Road.
She was stopped by traffic when water rushed across the road near the Zrebny Pizza shop. The Podmilsak children - Joey, 4, Kaylee, 6, and Eric, 9 - screamed and they took off their seat belts, Troutman said.
“They were petrified when they saw the water rising,” she said. “Some trucks went past and I tried to get them to help, but they drove around. Then a man came across from the pizza shop.
“I tried to open my door, but I couldn’t. He went around to the other side and lifted the children out and set them on the hillside. Then he helped me and I took pictures,” she said.
“They kept saying, ‘I don’t want to die.’ And I was really worried about the little girl. She was terrified,” said Aymar, 61.
The family spent about an hour in the home of an 88-year-old man before Troutman’s husband, Larry, arrived to take them home.
Within the hour, the rising water had trapped Montgomery, Aymar and pizza shop owner Jeanine Zrebny. She said she had stayed because she was completing a 16 pizza order for students who were stuck at the school.
By this time the usually meandering Little Deer Creek had swelled to about 150-feet wide and it was getting deeper with a speed that made it tough to stand, Zrebny said.
“The firefighters saved us,” she said.
“It was dangerous,” said assistant chief Mel Wick.
The engine couldn’t get closer than about 100 feet from the pizza shop.
After work by firefighters, two ropes were tied to the engine and to an ice machine. Standing with a fireman in front and one in back, and wearing life jackets, the three slowly walked their way to safety.
“It was flowing so fast you were afraid that your feet would come out from under you,” said Aymar, who with his brother owns the pizza building and several others.
Finally, they made it across the torrent. It was cold and frightening, they said. When the children made it to Troutman’s house, “They kept talking about it and then they knelt down and thanked God that this man was kind enough to save us,” Troutman said.
On Saturday a reporter handed Aymar a cell phone to talk with Troutman. They agreed to meet within the next few weeks at a restaurant to share photos and talk about the rescue. “We just want to say thank you to him,” Troutman said.
Not horsing around
Several miles away at Rosedale Road, Indiana Township, another rescue was under way.
Gizmo, a 10-year-old cream-colored pony owned by Mick Andrew, was perilously close to the creek.
“We were able to move him up the hill,” said his son, Jeff McAndrew.
“Right after that the barn and even the foundation were pushed under the bridge and smashed,” said neighbor Cathy Novak. “This road looked like a river and it pushed the student’s bus shelter across the road. And look over there. That boat used to be next to that house,” she said.
The mid-size boat was pushed about 200 yards down road.
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