Officers honored for rescuing driver from car submerged in Phoenix pool

Three Phoenix police officers were recognized this week for their efforts to rescue a man who had driven into an apartment complex pool and became trapped underwater.

Officer Anthony Lara was the first on scene early that morning last month, when a building resident called in about a car going into the pool.

Sergeant Michael Guadagnino arrived shortly after him and rushed to retrieve a halligan from his trunk to break open the sun roof.

“Hey! Phoenix police!” Lara can be heard saying on released body camera footage. “Come here! I got you, I got you, I got you.”

He later remembered pulling the driver out through the sun roof, saying, “You could hear him take that big gasp of air, so just based off of that I think he was running out of time. I think 30 seconds more and, God forbid, it would have been something totally different.”

With such limited time to act, Lara said, his decision to jump into the pool and onto the car’s roof was a no-brainer.

Officer Mark Borbon was also there; he said the driver seemed to be in shock and told him that when he’d tried to hit the brakes, he accidentally hit the gas instead.

“I don't know if the accelerator got stuck, which led him to go into the pool,” Borbon said, “but yeah, it's kind of like a freakish accident that just happened.”

When they pulled the driver from the water, he was still holding the cellphone he’d tried to have Siri call 911 from, which didn’t go through. Lara said not to try calling for help from a sinking vehicle in favor of escaping.