KILLINGLY, Conn. — It was just before noon on Saturday when Timothy Lowell was driving down Main Street in Danielson. As he approached Five-Mile-River he saw a commotion and heard that a car had driven into the river. That's when he slammed his car in park, looked to his buddy in the front seat, and said we have to do something.
"I looked down there. Assessed the situation, took everything out of my pockets, and just scaled the fence over to the car," said Lowell.
A green sedan has driven through a chain-link fence and was stuck on rocks in the icy cold river with Mohammad Kennawi, 86, trapped inside.
"Honestly when I looked down there, I didn’t know if there’s a child in there and I’ve got four kids," said Lowell. "My first instinct was to get down there and check to make sure he’s alive."
Kennawi was awake and alert throughout the whole experience. Lowell says he just tried to talk to Kennawi through the roughly 35-minute ordeal.
"He started talking about Christmas and New Year’s Eve," said Lowell.
The Kennawi family gave a "thank you" to the North Carolina native who was in the right place at the right time. They met where the accident occurred to offer him a gift and a chance to meet their father soon.
"There are a lot of good people in this world and we can’t thank you from the bottom of our hearts enough for what you did for him," said Kennawi's daughter Suzanne Mazzarella.
Kennawi’s family says their father amazingly didn’t break any bones when his car fell 25-feet into the river. He is being treated for hypothermia at Providence Hospital.
"To see that the officer and Timothy without even any thought to go down there and save my dad, it was amazing," said Mazzarella.
The family says that Kennawi was diagnosed with COVID-19 at the hospital, but it wasn’t the reason for the accident. They say the actual cause still under investigation.
"He had triple bypass surgery three years ago, so they were actually thinking that maybe the pacemaker had something to do with it," said Mazzarella.
Kennawi is still alert at the hospital while he continues to recover from his injuries. As for Lowell, he says he’s not a hero. Instead of that, he’d done what he'd hope anyone else would do for him.