BARBOURVILLE, Ky. – Douglas Frederick, an RN in the Barbourville ARH Hospital ER, hadn’t planned on traveling the morning of Feb. 13.

“I had the day off and was trying to have my water cut off because I was moving, but I couldn’t get the water company on the phone,” he said. “So, I just drove there instead.”

On his way home, he saw a few guys standing beside a work truck pulled over on the side of Ky. State Highway 930 in Artemus.

“We’d had significant rain and there’s a low spot coming down the mountain that can hold water,” he explained. “There’s usually nothing in it, but it was filled up about 30 foot deep.”

When Frederick pulled over to see if he could help, he saw a car on its top, submerged and filling with water.

“The windows were up, and we could hear screaming inside,” he said. “I ran back to my truck to get something to break the window, but one of the other guys had a ballpeen hammer and busted the glass out of the back.”

Frederick said he didn’t give his next move much thought as he maneuvered himself into the backseat.

“There was a little 4-year-old girl with her legs dangling from her car seat, but I was having a hard time getting the seatbelt unbuckled,” he said. “I was on my back, trying to hold my head up, but finally, I was able to pull her sideways through the straps and I handed her to one of the other guys.”

He then turned his attention to the front seat where the driver struggled to keep her head above water.

“She said she was drowning,” Frederick recalled. “I couldn’t really see anything because of the water but I was holding her head up and trying to tug at the seatbelt to get her loose.”

Frederick asked one of the other men to give him a knife, but after 10 or 15 minutes in the frigid water he said he began losing sensation in his hands.

Unable to cut the belt, he said he began to worry for himself.

“I thought I might have to go, but that’s when she said, ‘I’m free! I’m free!’” he said. “She was able to somehow slide out.”

Frederick and the driver, along with the 4-year-old and a 10-year-old who was pulled from the front passenger seat by another good Samaritan, took shelter inside a warm work truck until EMS took control of the scene, transporting them to Barbourville ARH Hospital, where they were treated and released.

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Frederick doesn’t know what caused the phone trouble that day. And he doesn’t know the names of the people he helped save either.

“None of that really matters though,” he said. “I was where I needed to be.”

He’s heard the word “hero” thrown around since the accident and he says he’s humbled by the reaction.

“It was scary,” he said. “I know I risked my life, but I wasn’t thinking about that at the time. It was scarier to me to hear their screams and to think they might drown. I just did what I needed to do, and my reward is seeing them survive.”

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Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH), is a not-for-profit health system operating 14 hospitals in Barbourville, Hazard, Harlan, Hyden, Martin, McDowell, Middlesboro, Paintsville, Prestonsburg, West Liberty, Whitesburg, and South Williamson in Kentucky and Beckley and Hinton in West Virginia, as well as multi-specialty physician practices, home health agencies, home medical equipment stores and retail pharmacies and medical spas. ARH employs approximately 6,400 people with an annual payroll and benefits of $474 million generated into our local economies. ARH also has a network of more than 1,300 providers on staff across its multi-state system. ARH is the largest provider of care and the single largst employer in southeastern Kentucky, and the third-largest private employer in southern West Virginia