He Was Reporting on a Flood When a Driver Disappeared Into the Water. He Handed Off His Phone and Swam Out

He was only there to film a flooded road. Nobody expected the story to come to him.

Within minutes, a stranger’s car was sinking in brown floodwater, with the driver still trapped inside.

What this reporter did next has now been watched by people all over the world.

Just Another Morning Covering the Rain

It was Thursday morning, October 22, at Morayfield, just north of Brisbane, Australia.

Heavy rain had been hammering south-east Queensland. About 170 millimetres had fallen in the area since that morning, ABC News reported.

Will Murray, a reporter with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, was out covering the flash flooding.

With him was his colleague, camera operator Liz Pickering. She was filming footage of the flooded road for the news.

The spot was Buchanan Road, where the water had spread right across the bitumen.

To anyone looking at it, the water seemed calm. There was no raging torrent and no dramatic wave.

That is exactly what made it so dangerous.

A Driver Rolls Past the Warning Sign

At 10:04am, a vehicle drove past a “road flooded” warning sign, according to an ABC News breakdown of the footage.

It was a grey four-wheel-drive ute. The driver went into the water at speed.

About halfway across, the ute got stuck and stalled. Then it began to float.

“I saw him drive in and immediately his car started floating downstream so I rang Triple Zero,” Murray told ABC News.

On Pickering’s own camera tape, she can be heard saying: “How can we help him? Jesus Christ.”

Within about a minute, the car was spinning in the current. The bonnet slipped under the water.

The driver tried to reverse out. It did not work.

The Moment He Decided to Jump In

Murray stayed on the phone with emergency services, trying to give them the exact location.

“On the phone the operator asked me if I could see the driver and if I thought he could get free,” he said.

“Initially I could see him, but he disappeared from my sight within seconds so I made the call to jump in.”

By around three minutes, the ute was sinking fast. Bystanders were shouting in the distance.

Murray handed his phone to Pickering, still connected to Triple Zero, and started swimming towards the car.

He was not alone for long.

The Stranger Who Swam Out Behind Him

Daniel Hainey had been out with his family when he noticed the ute in the water.

At first, he did not realise anyone was inside. Then he saw the window move.

“The car began to slowly sink deeper and deeper, and that’s when I thought, ‘Oh no, this is not looking good’, so I started swimming in there,” Hainey told ABC News.

So two men who had never planned to be there were now swimming side by side towards a sinking car.

When they reached it, the hardest part was still ahead of them.

A Door That Would Not Open

“When we got to the car we tried to open the closest door, no luck, then got on the back of the car with the thought to break the back window,” Murray said.

Then he had one more idea.

“I thought to try the passenger side rear door first and put my feet against the car and pulled as hard as I could and with some luck the door swung open.”

“I think water rushing in helped create some pressure to force the door open.”

The driver was able to make his way to the open door. The two men pulled him out and towards shallow water.

As soon as he was free, the vehicle went completely under.

According to ABC News, only 90 seconds passed from the moment the two men got into the water until the roof of the ute disappeared.

Hugs at the Water’s Edge

All three men made it out safely.

“All three of us gave each other a big hug and were just so relieved,” Murray said.

“It was very scary, but happy everyone is safe and relieved it is OK.”

Hainey said the driver was “very, very lucky”.

Pickering had captured the entire rescue on camera.

“The pair of them definitely saved that man’s life,” she said. “No doubt about that.”

Emergency services arrived about 10 minutes after the rescue, Murray said.

“He Didn’t See the Signage”

While they waited, the men talked with the driver.

“We were chatting with the man and he was saying he didn’t see the signage and didn’t realise how deep it was,” Murray said.

Murray admitted he could not tell how deep it was either.

“I had no idea how deep it was and that’s the lesson we keep hearing, isn’t it, that you can’t tell and you really couldn’t; it didn’t look particularly severe.”

“But as you can see in the vision, the car completely disappears, it’s clearly very deep in the middle there.”

From the moment the ute entered the water, it took about six minutes for it to vanish beneath the surface, ABC News reported.

The Reporter Who Didn’t Want to Be the Story

The video quickly spread online, and people began calling Murray a hero.

He quickly turned the attention to the men and women of the emergency services, ABC News reported.

“The adrenaline is still very, very high. I don’t know how people do this regularly,” he said.

The next day, he spoke to Reuters about how it felt to watch someone almost drown.

“It was terrifying. Like, the thought of watching someone drown was just, you know, I can see why people would sort of freeze up,” he said,

“because it is just horrifying to watch someone in distress like that.”

He never got the driver’s name or number, NBC News reported. But he said he hoped the man was doing well.

“You know, we had a big old hug after we got him out, and that was just one of the best moments of my life,” Murray said.

“I have to say, just the relief of seeing him safe and well. That was enough for me.”

A Lesson Everyone Should Hear

Murray’s own message after the rescue was simple.

“I just witnessed how quickly it can go south and it is terrifying. Please don’t drive into floodwaters.”

Experts agree. The Queensland Fire Department advises residents not to swim in floodwater at all.

Flood researcher Dr Amy Peden of UNSW warned that would-be rescuers sometimes drown trying to help. Her advice is to call for help as quickly as possible.

Queensland Fire and Rescue swift water instructor Matt Kelemen said people caught in a car should take off their seatbelts and try to wind their windows down.

“The safest car in floodwater is the one that never enters it,” Dr Peden said.

One Ordinary Morning, One Life Saved

That Thursday began as a routine weather assignment.

It ended with a stranger alive, three soaked men hugging on the side of the road, and a video the world could not stop sharing.

Murray says there are “few better feelings” than saving a person’s life.

Somewhere in Queensland, a driver he never got to properly meet is probably thinking the very same thing.