Credit: Tom Sofield/NewtownPANow.com
Jaime Huizing thought she wasn’t going to make it. The flash flood that nearly killed her and ended up taking the lives of seven others was like nothing she ever has experienced before.
“I just kept thinking that ‘I can’t die,'” she recalled this week at her Newtown Township home. “It’s a miracle I made it.”
Jaime sat down with NewtownPANow.com to share her incredible story in full detail.
For the wife and mother, discussing the terrible events of July 15 was therapeutic.
“It helps to talk about it,” she said.
Just before 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 15, as Jaime was about 10 minutes from home and traveling from a work meeting in New Hope Borough, she was driving in her SUV along Washington Crossing Road (Route 532) as the rain began to pick up.
Due to injuries sustained when she was struck in two previous crashes – one caused by a DUI driver nearly a decade ago and a more recent crash caused by a distracted driver – Jaime gets nervous driving in storms and often will call her husband to check in.
Justin Huizing, Jaime’s husband, recalled talking to his wife as she traveled on Washington Crossing Road. He said she told him there were cars in front and behind her, then she told her husband traffic was stopped and water began rushing across the road, rising quickly.
“Then she said, ‘oh my god, it’s coming over the front of the car’ and that’s when I was telling her she has to call 9-1-1. She then screamed and she said, ‘it’s coming in the window.’ I screamed at her to call 9-1-1, and the phone disconnected,” Justin said.
Within four minutes, according to Jaime’s estimate, the road went from being wet to having several feet of water flowing across it with enough force to push fallen trees and other cars.
Jaime talked to a 9-1-1 dispatcher and they told her to get on the roof of her SUV, but the water just kept rising. She got out of her SUV and was swept away.
Jaime doesn’t exactly remember every detail of what happened next, but she knows she grabbed onto the guardrail, her hands sliding across the galvanized steel as the water pushed her.
“The guardrail must have broke and I slid down it,” Jaime said. “The fire chief told me the end of the guardrail must have broke off and the current just took me.”
Jaime recalls her body being violently tumbled through the brush as the wicked flash flood waters from Houghs Creek rushed toward the Delaware Canal and Delaware River. She struggled to breathe as she was pushed under the water.
“I told myself my husband and my son can’t find me this way,” she said. “My son was at work, and I just kept thinking of him coming home to finding out that his mom drowned.”
Jaime was washed about half-a-mile from her SUV and held onto a tree as the water raged.
“I was trying to grab onto things, but everything I grabbed slipped through my fingers. I just kept thinking, ‘I can’t die this way. I can not drown,'” Jaime said.
Eventually, she found a tree where she could grab onto.
Due to a recent neck surgery, Jaime has limited upper body strength, but she found the strength to get herself partly out of the flood waters, she said.
“I had to get something to hold,” she stated, adding she grabbed onto a sturdy tree.
After she was secure from the raging flooding around her, the noise started to calm and she wondered where she was and if someone would find her.
“And then I saw a teenage boy floating by,” she said. “He was screaming for help and asking where the water went to. I kept thinking the Delaware River, and I couldn’t let him go by.”
Jaime and the boy then realized they knew one another. The teen and her son were friends in elementary school, and she knew the family.
The two don’t recall the exact details, as some memories remain fuzzy, but she offered to put out her leg.
Shortly after, the two were holding onto the tree as the water flowed by.
Jaime worked to stop the bleeding from her hand, and the teen used his shirt to make a tourniquet to stem the wounds he received when he punched the window out of his car to escape the flood.
“That’s when the rescue guys came. I think there were three of them, and we couldn’t hear them at first because the water was too loud. They told us to sit tight because we were in the safest place we could be at in the moment,” Jaime said.
The rescuers from the Upper Makefield Township Volunteer Fire Company attempted to throw a rope to Jaime and the teen, but they couldn’t get it across the water.
“Then the gravel started to show,” Jaime said. “The water wasn’t as bad, but the rescuers needed a while because of everything. I thought if they left they wouldn’t come back.”
Jaime said two of the firefighters went to get more assistance, and Firefighter Connor Gromlich stayed with her and the teen.
“We stayed for a little until they got us, but it gets a little blurry after,” Jaime said.
Jaime and the teen were transported by a piece of large construction equipment to the command post at Washington Crossing and Wrightstown roads. They were then transported by an ambulance for treatment.
Justin, Jaime’s husband, said he was in a panic after his wife’s call disconnected as she told him of the increasing flood waters.
In a panic, Justin rushed toward the scene and came upon storm damage and a fire vehicle staffed by Bristol Township Fire Marshal Kevin Dippolito.
While Justin was intent on rushing toward the flooding and finding his wife, Dippolito told him it was too dangerous.
“He asked me what her name was promised to find her,” Justin said.
Dippolito stuck to his word and helped searchers in locating and retrieving Jaime.
“They’re so incredible,” Jaime said of the fire crews who helped rescue her.
Jaime still has a long road to recovery, but she was on the mend as of this week. She’s been seeing doctors and going to therapy.
The family has been amazed by the outpouring of support from people they know, people who they haven’t talked to in years, and strangers in the community. Justin gave credit to his bosses for allowing him time to be there for his family.
The custom, handmade jewelry company Jaime owns and operates will be impacted due to her injuries, but she hopes to recover fully, like she has from her past two crashes.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help the family.
“It’s a miracle,” Jaime said of her rescue.
“In retrospect, I see my life is worth more than anything and having my family is all I want. When I was in the hospital, I just couldn’t wait to be home. And I am now.”
