When 16-year-old Corion Evans saw people trapped in a sinking car in the Mississippi River, he didn’t even give it a second thought.
He took off his shirt and phone, dove, and swam to rescue them.
At around 2:30 am on Sunday, July 3, 2022, a car drove into the Pascagoula River in Moss Point. The car was led 20 feet away from the shore by the water current, where the car with three passengers began to sink.
That’s when they started screaming for help, which Corion heard.
“I was just like, ‘I can’t let none of these folks die. They need to get out the water,'” Pascagoula High School student Corion Evans recalled. “So, I just started getting them. I wasn’t even thinking about nothing else.”
Moss Point Police Department reported that the person driving the car was following GPS and didn’t realize she was driving into the water. By the time they realized it, they were already driven away from the shore by the water.
Police Officer Gary Mercer also answered the girls’ call for help and he dove into the water to save them.
One of Corion’s friends, Karon “KJ” Bradley, was also there to help save the teens in the car and he guided them to go to the top of the car. And Corion was with them all throughout.
“I was behind them trying to keep them above water and swim with them at the same time,” Corion said.
However, one of the victims Officer Mercer brought ashore began to panic, which forced him to go under and swallow water.
“I turned around. I see the police officer. He’s drowning. He’s going underwater, drowning, saying, ‘Help!'” Corion recalled. “So, I went over there. I went and I grabbed the police officer and I’m like swimming him back until I feel myself I can walk.”
Once they were all onshore, the survivors started throwing up all the water they had swallowed.
The three teens and the police officer were all taken to the hospital for evaluation and are now recovering.
One of the survivors who were in the car, Cora Watson, shared what she remembered about the incident.
“It’s no lights down here or nothing, so everything was just pitch black,” Cora told WLOX. “The GPS thought we was on top of the interstate. That’s why it was telling us to go straight because it did not say it was water here or nothing.”
Cora was the last one to be rescued. She was bobbing her head up and down the water, trying to catch her breath.
And just when she thought she was going to be breathing her last, Corion came and rescued her.
The city thanked Corion and Officer Mercer for their bravery.
“The police department and I commend Mr. Evans’s bravery and selflessness he displayed by risking his own safety to help people in danger,” Moss Point Chief Brandon Ashley said in a statement. “If Mr. Evans had not assisted, it could have possibly turned out tragically instead of all occupants rescued safely.”
And Corion’s mom, Marquita, could not be more proud of his son.
She said he wasn’t thinking about himself but he was focused on saving the others.
Ashley DeFlanders, a person inspired by Corion’s actions, decided to do something to repay his heroic deed. She started a GoFundMe page to raise college money and it’s already surpassed the goal she set in less than a week.
Hear Corion’s heroic story when you watch the video below.
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
