Two officers rescue 11-year-old girl from pond
By Sydnee Scofield
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CLAYTON, North Carolina (WTVD) — Two Clayton Police officers are sharing their story after they rescued a young girl from a pond last week.
It happened last Thursday, when a man called 911 to report two people struggling in a pond.
Cpl. Brandon Pope was the first to answer the call. When he got on the scene, he realized it was a young girl and a woman taking care of her, struggling to get the girl out of the water.
“I could see their heads going up and down. They were in neck deep water. So, I got out of my car as fast as I could,” Pope told ABC11.
As he waded out to them, the woman told him that the young girl was nonverbal and autistic, and it became clear that she was in crisis.
“We were in relatively deep water. There’s the muddy bottom. I’m soaking wet, uniform soaking wet. She’s soaking wet. I can’t hardly hold on to her,” Pope said. “I get her back the best I could, and then I become kind of mired up in the in the muddy, in the mud, the murk.”
At that point, Pope realized that he needed help. He asked the woman who had made it out of the water to get his radio and call for assistance. Clayton police officer David Barbour heard her voice over the radio, calling that moment “terrifying.”
“When I hear this woman’s voice on the radio, and I know it’s not (Pope’s), and I hear the amplified tone in her voice, I know that in my mind, the first thing I thought is something happened to him and he needs us there immediately,” Barbour told ABC11.
Barbour rushed to the pond and jumped in right away. He was able to quickly help both Pope and the young girl make it safely out of the water.
Police eventually learned that the young girl had waded out into the water in crisis and the woman looking after her tried, but was unable to save her on her own.
“I think had Cpl. Pope not gotten there as fast as he did and taking the actions that he took, I think this could have had a very different ending and had, had the person not called 911 to begin with, they could have had a very different ending,” Barbour said.
Both officers said they hope that if you take anything away from this story, it’s that it’s always better to call 911 if something feels off, and that sometimes, it takes the community coming together to keep everyone safe.
“We can’t always do it alone. We had a lot of resources that day. Fire, EMS, other police officers, even the public came out and helped in their own way, and sometimes it takes that,” Pope said.
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