Police officer rescues woman

Huntington Beach Police Officer Brian Knorr had just finished his seventh hour of overtime on a fatal traffic accident when he got the call.

He was heading back to the station Sept. 3 with a police trainee when a call came in about another crash near Slater Avenue and Misty Lane. A car had plunged off the road into a drainage ditch.

“There was a guy standing in the street, waving at us, motioning toward the ditch,” Knorr said. “Initially, you couldn’t see anything showing that an accident had occurred.”

Knorr walked over to the ditch and peered in. Looking over the collapsed fence, Knorr saw a car there with water cascading in the driver’s window.

Inside, 83-year-old Eleanor Smith screamed for help.

“That is something I will never forget,” Knorr said about the shrieks he heard before he even saw the vehicle.

Tearing off his belt and throwing it to the trainee, Knorr dove in the water rushing to reach Smith as the car rapidly sank below the service.

“I grabbed her arms and scooped her out,” he said.

By the time she got loose, water overwhelmed the car. Only a small portion of the roof was visible above water.

While pulling her out, Knorr’s biggest concern was that she might have a heart attack.

“I tried to talk to her calmly and reassure her that I got her purse,” Knorr said.

“I just told her to rest on me, and the fire [department rescue workers] will be here soon.”

He stayed with Smith until the fire department arrived. They took charge of her care and rushed her to Huntington Beach Hospital, where she was treated and released within a few hours.

“I was just in such a daze it all happened too fast,” Smith said by phone Wednesday. “I just remember saying to the officer, ‘It hurts too much to cry.’”

Smith was on her way to church, backing out of her garage on Misty Lane, when the car raced out of her control.

“I couldn’t turn the steering wheel,” she said. “I had my foot on the brake since out of the garage. It didn’t make any difference.”

The car went over the curb, across Slater Avenue and into the ditch, Smith said.

The next thing she remembers is water rushing in through the window and Knorr pulling her out.

Knorr and Smith have not seen one another or spoken since that day.

Smith said she still feels a little dazed by it all, but it has left a permanent impression on Knorr.

“I’m fortunate to be able to say I saved someone’s life,” Knorr said. “It is not something everybody could say.”

“There’s no doubt in my mind that a few more seconds and she would have drowned,” he said. “I just feel very grateful that I was able to get her out of that car,” he said.

Police Chief Ken Small said he was proud of his officer’s performance.

“I am really happy that he was that close,” Small said. “I think if he hadn’t pulled her out, she surely would have died in that car.”