EXCLUSIVE: Officer's body camera records heroic swamp rescue
4 years 1 month 1 week ago Friday, June 05 2015 Jun 5, 2015 June 05, 2015 10:32 PM June 05, 2015 in News
By: Trey Schmaltz
NAPOLEONVILLE - Less than three months after deputies started wearing body cameras, the recording devices captured the dramatic images they were designed to record: an officer's heroic acts in a swamp.
Deputy Donald Aubrey, Jr., and his partner responded to a couple who needed to be rescued from their capsized boat in the Bayou L'ourse community Wednesday night. The sky was pitch black, the water was murky and the woman was emotional. Body camera audio recordings captured her frantic screams as she struggled to continue holding on to the boat and fight fears of what might be swimming under her feet.
Aubrey, who is a trained lifeguard, jumped in.
"I knew my training, I judged the distance on how far she was, and I told my sergeant that I was going to go in," Aubrey said in an exclusive interview with WBRZ for the station's 10 p.m. newscast Friday night.
"You don't want to screw up and make things worse," Aubrey said of the concern going through his mind as he approached the woman. "You want to do things right. [I was thinking] 'I have to get out there, I have to get her to shore,'" he added.
The other deputy's body camera captured the moment Aubrey and the woman returned to shore. You can watch the video in the attached news clip.
"Some say I'm a hero. For me, it's just doing my job. One day you might be on the bayou, one day you might be pulling someone out of a house. I thank God I have the courage to do my job when it comes down to it," Aubrey said.
"I'd rather die doing something I love then sit on my couch doing nothing at all."
Follow the publisher of this post on Twitter: @treyschmaltz
The broadcast edition of this story was produced by Greg Renoud