Young lifesavers

“The water was already up to the driver’s door”

Nevio (left) and his friend Florian discovered the car in the water.(Bild: Pressefoto Scharinger/Daniel Scharinger)

Two teenagers saved the life of a pensioner (84) who had driven into a flood in the Innviertel region despite a roadblock. The two 16-year-olds from Upper Austria had the presence of mind to alert the emergency services. It was not the first such incident.

Certainly no fun for the fire departments, who are already in constant action: an 84-year-old driver from Helpfau-Uttendorf in the district of Braunau am Inn ignored a roadblock in his home town on Tuesday evening. With fatal consequences: The Mattig River, which had burst its banks, caught the vehicle, drove it off and pushed it against a bridge. The pensioner was unable to free himself due to the masses of water and his car continued to sink.

"This is not going to end well"
His great luck was two teenagers who happened to be there: "A red car suddenly appeared at the sewage treatment plant and we thought to ourselves: 'This isn't going to end well'," says Nevio (16), who, together with his friend Florian, who is the same age, probably became a lifesaver for the sinking senior. "We called the emergency services straight away, the water was already up to the driver's door," says the young man from Uttendorf, who is doing an apprenticeship as a plastics process engineer.

Charge for disregarding the barrier
Firefighters jumped into the cold water, got the car door open and pulled the 84-year-old out of his car. Fortunately, the senior citizen was unharmed. However, he is now facing charges for disregarding the roadblock. 

A 31-year-old in Königswiesen had already made headlines on Saturday when he simply drove around the no-driving signs and scissor barriers on the B 119a on his way to the shops - and then got stuck in the flood.

"Naturally annoyed in some cases"
"Of course, some people are annoyed," says Franz Kurzmann, commander of the Uttendorf fire department, commenting on the latest incident. "The roadblocks are not set up for nothing, that has to be taken into account. But people are our priority, the most important thing is that the driver is safe. We'll talk about the other issues later."