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‘Gotta do something’: Father, son help save woman from sinking vehicle in Grove City

When they saw a car sinking in a retention pond a father and son from Commercial Point say they did what they had to.

GROVE CITY, Ohio — Tire tracks through the grass and mud provide evidence of a moment a father and son will never forget.

"My wife said, ‘what is that over in the pond?’”

Michael Glaze was driving home Saturday night with his wife and son when something caused him to quickly put the car in park. They saw a car's tail lights sticking out of a retention pond.

"The SUV was starting to go under the front of it was underwater but the back of it was still held up bobbing,” Glaze explained. “Decided, ‘well we gotta do something’ and jumped in the water.”

At the same time and without hesitation Michael and his son Jacob got in and swam to the car. They found a woman trapped in the driver's seat.

“It was just something inside told me I had to get inside and save that woman,” said Jacob Glaze.

“Once it started sinking it started sinking a little faster,” Michael Glaze explained.

They couldn't get any of the doors open. But her window was halfway down.

"I was able to get one arm in the car and get my other underneath her and pull her up to the air pocket and then Jacob got his in and got her neck and pulled her back because she had already sucked in water once but he got her face out of the water but it was up to her face and that was the only thing that was out of the water,” said Glaze.

In the cold water, they held on until police and firefighters arrived.

Tying a rope around a tree they rushed in taking over for Michael and Jacob. Body camera video shows a struggle to get the door open. Until suddenly it does -- and they pull the woman from the vehicle and out of the water.
Michael and Jacob watched -- then warmed up inside an ambulance.

Credit: Glaze family

“I didn't register my son was beside me,” said Glaze.

Glaze realized in that moment he and his 16-year-old son had saved a life, together.

“As a parent, you go through and you watch your kids and they grow up in front of you and you miss things and you're like 'when did they start high school?' You know ‘they're in high school when did they get so mature? When did they start having to shave every day?' and everything and I can honestly say now, and you miss that you don't know when it happened, you don't know what timeline that it happened or anything. But I know with him, the moment I can say he went from where I see him as a boy to a man, I was right beside him. And I'm so proud of him.”

Michael and Jacob went to the fire station the next day for an update on how the woman was doing.

They were told she is expected to be OK.

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