FMU staff saves couple

FMU maintenance employee Robert Fulmore was one five people who helped save a young couple from drowning in a pond after a car collision off Olanta Highway.

Fulmore said he and his 13-year-old daughter were going for a Sunday drive when he saw a car sinking in the pond and another man struggling to help save the couple.

Shyheim Platt and Nautril McElveen said they were heading to the store when Platt tried to pass the car in front of him, not realizing another car was coming.

Platt swerved his car back into his lane, but the car ahead had considerably slowed down as they were preparing to turn.

“I thought it was the end,” Platt said. “Especially when my door got slammed and I just kind of panicked. We had to try and kind of fight with it because I couldn’t get no leverage.”

By the time Fulmore got to the scene, he said he had to jump straight into action.

Fulmore said he used his belt to help pull Platt up and sent it back in to try and pull up McElveen. However, she wasn’t able to grab his belt.

“I think she grabbed it but she couldn’t hold onto it,” Fulmore said. “And by that time I said, ‘Well you know, I have to save her.’”

After realizing that McElveen was not going to be able to grab the belt, Fulmore said he knew he had to get into the water.

Fulmore said that when he got in the water he sank down, but got close enough to grab McElveen and began trying to reach the shore.

However, in the process Fulmore said he also began sinking and was worried for his life in his attempt to get McElveen closer to shore to be pulled up.

“I thought everybody had given up on me,” Fulmore said. “And then I said, ‘God, I know you’re not gonna let me die.’”

Fulmore said that just as he finished praying to God to save him, a hand reached out to grab him.

Derrick Porter and his wife Bree Porter were two of the people helping to rescue the young couple from the water.

“It took every single one of us for no fatalities to happen,” Porter said

Porter said she and her husband did not think about themselves when they saw what was going on.

“We didn’t think about our lives,” Porter said. “We were thinking about the others’ lives.”

Platt and McElveen were very thankful to all the people who risked their lives to pitch in and save them.

“If nobody had been there to help us, we could’ve been gone,” Platt said. “I know I wouldn’t have made it because I was drowning already.

McElveen, Platt, Porter and Fulmore said they would be bonded together forever now.

Porter said she plans to keep in contact with everyone who was there to help out.

“We are definitely going to stay in touch,” Porter said. “This was a life changing experience for everybody.”