Dash Cam Video Shows Moments When Victim, Deputy Get Swept Away
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FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - New dashcam video shows the moment a sheriff's deputy gets swept away by flood waters while attempting save a grandmother trapped in her car.
The Tarrant County Sheriff's Office released the clip of Deputy Krystal Salazar and Dale Rhoads making their way toward 76-year-old Zenola Jenkins. Rhoads was her son-in-law.
"The current picked her little Mazda up and put it on the guard rail," Rhoads said during an exclusive interview with CBS 11. "And that's where she was when we got there."
Rhoads is a retired sheriff's deputy from Mansfield, Ohio.
"Yeah, I was dive team commander, and I should have known better, but you know, when it's family, your emotions take over from there," he said.
Moments after Rhoads and Salazar entered the water, they begin to lose their footing. The deputy falls, then gets washed away. Rhoads said the force of the current pinned him to the guard rail.
"I couldn't even move my legs to try and get back to where the current wasn't strong," Rhoads said. "That's how hard the water was going up against. "
During all of this, Jenkins was making calls to her daughter who was watching on. These were the last conversations the two would ever have.
"She was calling Diana," Rhoads said. "Gave her updates... You know, the water is up to my legs. Then the water is up to my waist. And then the last call she got... The water was up to her neck, and then the phone went dead."
Search crews found Jenkins' car days later, about a mile downstream, with the 76-year-old's body still inside.
"It's just earth shattering, traumatic," Rhoads said. "It's beyond words."
The grandmother was beloved, and leaves behind a large family.
Her daughters, including Diana, who comforted her in last moments, met privately with Deputy Krystal Salazar.
A spokesman from the sheriff's office said the deputy clung to a tree for two hours before being pulled from the water and is still shaken up by the incident.
Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson issued a statement yesterday praising the deputy's actions.
"I am asked many times if the 'new' generation of law enforcement coming up will have the same dedication, the same sense of duty, as did the last generation," Anderson said. "I can only tell you that Deputy Salazar, without hesitation or second thought, risked her life to try to save that of another, complete stranger."
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