I know this family. This girl is just flat out amazing, and she is a really shy girl in person, but it's really amazing that she rose to the challenge to save her family. Maddie, basically took charge and got her mom and family out of the SUV and immediately took off for help. The branch she climbed out on to get help on, the fire dept was amazed that it even held her up at all. It was barely the size of her wrist.
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http://www.koinlocal6.com/content/mediacenter/default.aspx?videoId=9105@koin.dayport.com&navCatId=156Here's the story from the Oregonian newpaper
TILLAMOOK -- Stephanie McRae didn't know how much time had passed between the moment Fawcett Creek swept her SUV downstream and the point she found herself on top of the vehicle with her daughter, Madison, and two toddler foster children.
What she did know was that there was a good chance they wouldn't make it out of the river, a good chance the Class 5 rapids would sweep them away into the night.
Then Madison, 11, yelled. "She said, 'I'm going to go get help,'" McRae, 39, recalled. "I didn't want to let her go, but I didn't have any other way. I just had to. I had to let her go."
McRae told her daughter she loved her. Madison climbed onto a tree and disappeared into the night.
BENJAMIN BRINK/THE OREGONIAN Madison McRae, 11, took charge and helped get her mom, Stephanie McRae, and the family's two foster children to safety.
The rain had been coming down for three straight days. Sheriff's deputies and firefighters had been attending to minor problems all evening: landslides, flooded roads -- the nuisances people in Tillamook County come to expect in the rainy winter months.
Then Chuck Spittles, Tillamook Fire District captain, heard this call at 8:40 p.m. Wednesday: Motor vehicle accident, vehicle in the water.
Twenty minutes later, crews arrived to find not one, but two vehicles in the water, and seven people hanging on.
On the roof of the Ford sport utility vehicle, McRae clung to the toddlers; on the opposite bank, Tillamook County District Attorney Bill Porter's wife, Jody; daughters, Alison, 13, and Lydia, 9; and his father-in-law, retired Oregon State Police Lt. Glenn Cyphers held fast to a cluster of alders. All were wet, cold and frightened, and the McRaes were in imminent peril.
"They were semi-safe where they were sitting," said Spittles. "But if they fell in, most likely we just perished three people."
Road gone
The night had begun routinely enough for McRae. Wednesday is activity night at church, and the foursome were on their way home.
Less than a quarter-mile from their driveway, McRae rounded the corner and, as her headlights cut through the rain and dark, she saw disaster: The road was gone, a wide gap where it used to be, and at the bottom, about 15 feet below, the rushing Fawcett Creek.
McRae hit the brakes. The vehicle went into a skid. It came to a stop right on the edge of the opening, but that wasn't soon enough. The wheels slipped over, and the SUV dove nose first into the water. The vehicle landed precariously, then righted itself and began floating downstream, bouncing off debris.
"All the air bags and the back windows and side windows popped out, and the water started rushing in," said McRae.
When the SUV became lodged between two trees, McRae and Madison unbuckled the 3-year-old boy and 2-year old girl. Madison, who is recovering from recent foot surgery, climbed onto the roof, and McRae handed the children to her until all were safely on the roof.
Madison makes a plan
That's when Madison knew it was up to her. Earlier, she had been too frightened to even think, Madison said Thursday from her Tillamook home. "Then it hit me, it was actually happening. I got ahold of myself."
She shimmied over a tree branch and onto land, then ran for a nearby ranch only to find herself stopped by an electric fence. Two, three, four times, the sixth-grader felt the shock meant to discourage animals 10 times her size.
"It hurt really bad," she said. "But I didn't really notice it. I had more important things to do. I was thinking that I could do it, and I just had to."
She made it to the house, banged on the door and was brought inside to call 9-1-1, giving dispatchers crucial information about the vehicle's location.
At the river, the U.S. Coast Guard and Tillamook volunteers worked to rescue the Porter family: hypothermic, weak and in the middle of the river. If rescuers did not get them to the bank, they could be carried to higher water, bigger currents and, possibly, death.
On the opposite side, Spittles and his crew rigged a ladder and ropes to reach McRae and the toddlers, about 25 feet below.
"You could see her Ford Expedition," said Spittles. "The current was boiling up on the back side, washing up over her. The two little ones were in her arms."
THE OREGONIAN
Rescuers positioned a 35-foot ladder, then lowered ropes to latch around the children. While several of the men steadied the ladder, another lifted the first child to safety, into the arms of waiting rescuers.
They repeated it a second time, and now only McRae was on the rooftop.
"I didn't know if I was going to get off the car, but I knew it was going to be OK," she said, her voice cracking with emotion. "It was enough that the kids were OK. I didn't think I was going to make it."
McRae was too cold to pull herself up onto the ladder, 8 to 10 feet above. Spittles considered calling for the Coast Guard helicopter, but the tree cover overhead would have made such a rescue dangerous for all.
The ladder would not have supported the weight of McRae and a rescuer. They were going to have to find another way.
Spittles and his crew picked the ladder off the ground, leveraging it in a see-saw manner until it dipped down to McRae's waist. She managed to crawl on, and rescuers guided her to the ground.
By then, the Coast Guard swift boat team had also brought the Porter family to safety. And on this night, it was a happy ending for all. Thursday morning, the McRaes returned to the scene to take a look at the tree Maddie had shimmied up to safety.
"It was pretty minimal," said Stephanie McRae. "I'm not sure how she did it. As far as we are concerned, this is divine. This couldn't have happened if we hadn't been being watched over."
