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First responders with Montgomery County, Maryland’s Fire and Rescue Services got to have a special reunion Sunday.
Members of the swift water rescue team met with the family of a 12-year-old boy who they had saved from flash flood waters just days earlier.
On July 31, rescuers responded to the intersection of Bradley Boulevard and Mercy Hollow Lane for reports of cars stuck in the floodwaters. When they arrived, they found floodwaters had submerged the car 12-year-old Aasish Selvaraj was in with his nanny, and his nanny’s young child.
Selvaraj said as water rushed by, rising inside the car, he climbed out and up.
“I was on a branch, a tree branch that fell leaning on the car,” Selvaraj said. “Our nanny’s son, I was holding on to him. I was also scared for him and our nanny.”
Crews were originally dispatched to what appeared to be a single vehicle, partially submerged but stable, pressed against a guardrail, officials said.
Then, across roughly 200 feet of floodwater, officers with Montgomery County Police alerted them via megaphone to something far more urgent: A second vehicle, with only its roof visible above the rushing water and Selvaraj on top with a baby in his arms.
“It was kind of then that I realized, ‘All right, we got to make a priority out of this. Right there. There are lives immediately in danger at this point,'” Capt. James Leinhauser said.
They ended up saving all three individuals in the first car, as well as Selvaraj, his nanny and the young child.
On Sunday, those first responders got to see Selvaraj and his family for the first time since that day.
The young boy and first responders gathered at the Cabin John Park Fire Department, where the Selvaraj family presented the fire and rescue service with a special surprise: a $10,000 check.
“Every mother’s worst fear is losing a child … what [the first responders] have done, their courage, I have no words,” Selvaraj’s mother Prathiba Ramadoss said.
“I mean, all I can say from my heart is I keep praying for them, for their family, for the welfare of first responders throughout my life.”
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