Robert Hughes was driving on the Auburn-Black Diamond Road today at the precise moment when a blue pickup drove off the road into Covington Creek. Because Hughes and four other men were there, a 28-year-old man’s life was saved.
The 1983 Ford F-100 pickup hit a guardrail and rolled into the creek at about 4 p.m. today, March 15, on the Auburn-Black Diamond Road near Camp Berachah in the 19800 block of Southeast 328th Place, unincorporated King County.
Hughes, a Black Diamond resident, said he was driving north on the Auburn-Black Diamond Road when he saw the man’s pickup that was traveling south suddenly veer “off the road, flip on the roof and tumble into the creek with the cab underwater.”
Hughes said he was sure the man would die within minutes if he did not act quickly. Hughes ran into the street and flagged down a car. He then jumped into the creek to get the man out of the pickup.
He was joined by four other men. Hughes said the five could not get the door open.
“We broke the window and we still couldn’t get it open,” Hughes said. “So we rolled it over.”
Hughes said once the five men rolled the pickup over, they could see the roof was crushed in around the man.
Even after rolling the truck upright, the door would still not open. Hughes said they finally grabbed the door and “ripped it open.”
Hughes said they found the man with the roof crushed around his head, bleeding with the seatbelt around his neck.
“One of the guys took the seat belt off his neck and he was still breathing,” Hughes said.
At this point two emergency medical personnel from Mountain View Fire and Rescue joined the five men. The seven men were able to move the man from the pickup onto the shore.
The man was treated at the scene then airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in critical condition according to Sgt. John Urquhart, spokesman for the King County Sheriff’s Office.
King County Sheriff’s deputies investigating the crash. Auburn-Black Diamond Road would be closed for more than three hours.
“If I had been five seconds earlier or later I wouldn’t have seen it,” Hughes said. “It all happened in about two seconds. That guy was really lucky.”
