Teen escapes house by swimming in flooded Kentucky with dog

Web Desk

31st Jul, 2022. 02:06 pm
Share
- Listen
- Font size
  - Small
  - Medium
  - Large
- Dark Mode
- Save
- Print

Articles

They shouted at her to stay inside until help arrived.
Chloe Adams swam through waist-deep water with her dog to escape flooded house.
They stayed there for more than five hours.

Chloe Adams, 17, awoke early on Thursday morning from a nightmare. Her Kentucky house kitchen tiles were bubbling up, and rushing water was pouring out of the bathroom drains and swiftly engulfing the house.

Chloe, who has had her dog Sandy since she was a child and lives with her grandfather in Whitesburg, Kentucky, was by alone.

“There was water as far as I could see,” she told CNN in a message. “I had a full-blown panic attack.”

She was, nevertheless, determined to get out alive and bring her dog with her.

Governor Andy Beshear reported on Friday that at least 25 individuals lost their lives in the widespread flooding and torrential rains that hit eastern Kentucky on Thursday, along with hundreds of others who lost everything.

The raging waters were separating Chloe’s grandparents from their granddaughter, who was in a house just a few feet away.

They shouted at her, telling her to stay inside until assistance arrived. However, Chloe claimed she recognized she had to leave if she wanted to survive due to poor mobile coverage and a 911 center that was apparently overburdened and unresponsive to her calls.

“My next thought was that we needed to swim out to my uncle’s house,” where the rest of her family was taking shelter, she said. “I put Sandy in the water momentarily to see if she could swim. But she couldn’t, so I scooped her up and went back inside, wading through the waist deep water to try to locate something that she could float to put her on.”

After experimenting with various pieces of furniture, Chloe decided to keep her dog dry by placing her inside a plastic drawer from her closet, which she then positioned on a sofa cushion to keep her buoyant.

“I finally had a plan that I believed might work,” she said. “I knew the dangers of trying to swim in deep and moving water, but I felt I had no choice.”

She swam through the chilly water, pushing Sandy’s cushion in front of her, till she came to the top of the last remaining portion of the adjoining storage facility.

The two stayed there for more than five hours before Chloe’s cousin used a kayak to rescue the teenager and her dog. While Chloe waited for assistance, her relatives, who were nearby and taking refuge on the second story of her uncle’s house, kept an eye on her and spoke to her.

The teenager sobbed upon reaching her grandmother’s house because she was “from the relief of knowing Sandy and I survived the flood,” she added.

“My heart goes out to all the other people who lost and suffered so much more than I did in this horrific devastation,” Chloe added.

In a Facebook post after the rescue, Terry Adams, the teen’s father, called his daughter a “hero.”

“We lost everything today,” he wrote. “Everything except what matters most.”

Teen escapes house by swimming in flooded Kentucky with dog

Web Desk

Articles