A 26-year-old man, who was the sole survivor in a deadly Florida crash that killed nine of his family members, tried to pull his family out to safety after the incident, according to a witness.
Authorities said a woman had been driving a 2023 Ford Explorer filled with her family members on Aug. 6, when she failed to negotiate a 90-degree curve in the road and hit a guardrail, before flipping upside down in a canal, per The Palm Beach Post.
Witness Warren Prescott told WPBF he was one of the first people who came upon the scene and called 911, before getting out of his car to help. He said he found the young man — later identified as Jorden Rickey Hall — in the canal, diving underwater as he tried to get his family members out of the submerged vehicle.
“He was saying, ‘Please help me, please help me. I’ve lost my whole family. This is my whole family,’ ” Prescott recalled to the outlet.
“I know I read that he was injured, and I’m sure he was,” Prescott continued. “I mean, he was like a machine. He was diving under the water nonstop and he had to be doing that for quite a while before I got there because he had already removed six of the victims.”
Prescott told WPBF that he helped carry some of the passengers that Prescott removed from the car to the canal bank and tried to administer CPR. He said he eventually flagged down a “passing work van” with “four or five guys” inside, who got out of their car and tried “to move” the submerged SUV “into a better position” so they could get out the remaining “children trapped in the car.”
He said that Hall kept trying to dive under the car to find more family members until police got to the scene and pulled him away so they could send divers to search for the rest of his loved ones in the submerged vehicle.
“He repeated multiple times that it was his whole family in the car. ‘I just lost my whole family. Why? Why me? Why am I still here?’ It was one of the most heart-wrenching things I’ve ever seen,” Prescott told WPBF.
“The guy was a total hero. It unfortunately wasn’t the best outcome, but he really tried his hardest and tried to save his family, and it was really something astonishing to see,” Prescott added.
A photo of the nine victims in the fatal crash, as seen on a GoFundMe for the family.
GoFundMe
Four of the SUV’s occupants were pronounced dead at the scene, while the others were transported to a local hospital, where they later died, authorities confirmed in a press release.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office identified the victims as driver Pamela Wiggins, 56 — who would have celebrated her birthday on Aug. 6 — and passengers Leiana Alyse Hall, 30; Anyia Tucker, 21; Michael Anthony Hall, Jr., 14; Imani Hall, 9; Kamdien Edwards, 5; Yasire Smith, 5; Ziaire Mack, 3; and Naleia Tucker, 23 months, per The Palm Beach Post.
Hall sustained serious injuries in the crash and was transported to a nearby hospital, per the outlet.
According to a crash report obtained by NBC affiliate WPTV, none of the victims were wearing seatbelts. The NTSB announcedthat it was sending a team to conduct an investigation into the crash.
A GoFundMe started by Wiggins’ daughter has been set up to help pay for funeral expenses and to remember “these precious lives lost.”
