Texas man dies after he cut his arm 'clean off' trying to rescue his family from flash floods
Julian Ryan. (right) A search dog looks through a dumpster at Camp Mystic after deadly flooding in Kerr County | Reuters
A Texas man bled to death after he nearly cut his arm off trying to save his family, including two children, from the devastating flash floods that swallowed their home.
Julian Ryan punched through a window of their trailer home in Ingram, which was filling quickly with water, so that his family could escape, but the impact cut his arm off so badly that he bled to death immediately, according to local news outlet KHOU.
Ryan was huddled in the bedroom of their home with his fiancée Christinia Wilson, and the couple’s 6-year-old and 13-month-old children when the Guadalupe River began to breach its banks. The couple and Ryan's mother were at the home when the surging water woke them up at 4 am on Friday. They lived at their house near the river.
Christinia Wilson said that within 20 minutes, the water was up to their knees. "It just started pouring in, and we had to fight the door to get it closed to make sure not too much got in," Wilson said.
However, the pressure of the water was too much that the door of the bedroom burst open flooding the room. That's when Ryan decided to break open the window. He punched a hole in a bedroom window, severing an artery in his arm. The impact almost cut his limb "clean off", the family members said.
Though Wilson repeatedly called 911, the rescuers could not get to their home to save Ryan. "By 6 (a.m.), he looked at me and the kids and my mother-in-law and said, 'I’m sorry, I’m not going to make it. I love y’all," Wilson said.
Their trailer broke off in half in the impact and the family led to safety without Ryan. "He died a hero, and that will never go unnoticed," Ryan's sister, Connie Salas, said.
It took rescuers several hours to retrieve Ryan's body.
The family believe flood sirens could have saved lives. "Everybody would've been worried -- what's that noise?" Wilson said. "We would have left. We would have gone anywhere else. We had so many places that were safe," she added.
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