ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 12, 1996 TAG: 9612120019
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press
A FEW MINUTES alone in a car were enough for the 3-year-old to set in motion a near disaster. "This definitely was our Christmas miracle,'' mom says.
A woman swam into an icy pond and grabbed her 3-year-old son from her car after it rolled from a parking lot and began to sink.
Kathy Crockett left her son, Hunter, in her hatchback station wagon Tuesday while she ran a brief errand. She had turned the engine off and taken the keys, but the boy shifted the car into neutral and it rolled into the pond, police said.
Crockett was in a shop buying plates to complete her china set when she glanced out, saw her car was sinking and ran outside.
``I was handing her the dishes and she was writing me the check when she glanced back and said, `My car is gone!''' said Brenda Rauppius, a clerk in the china shop. ``I froze. How could that be? But she went flying down there. She dropped her purse, her checkbook, car keys, everything.''
Hunter saw his mother coming and climbed into the rear of the car. She swam to the sinking car, yanked the hatchback open and pulled her son to safety.
``We've been blessed,'' Crockett said after she swam back to land with Hunter. ``This definitely was our Christmas miracle.''
``She was crying,'' said Karen Stanford, who stopped to help when she saw Crockett running into the pond. ``The only thing she kept saying was, `Thank God you're alive!'''
Crockett completed her stressful rescue despite a condition known as tracheal stenosis, which hampers her breathing. She and Hunter were treated for hypothermia at a local hospital and released.
LENGTH: Short : 44 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Kathy Crockett holds Hunter in their suburbanby CNBRichmond home Tuesday after the pond rescue. ``We've been blessed,''
Crockett said.