‘God had him the whole time’: Yuba County pipe rupture survivor was unresponsive for 8 minutes, wife says
By Michelle Bandur
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YUBA COUNTY (KCRA) — A 59-year-old security guard at the New Colgate Powerhouse in Yuba County miraculously survived after being swept away by a burst pipe earlier this month.
“God had him the whole time, and he made it through,” said his wife, Kathy.
Kathy said on Friday, Feb. 13, she couldn’t get ahold of Howard that afternoon, as he always lets her know when he’s headed home from work.
Howard works as a security guard for the New Colgate Powerhouse and was standing outside the building when he and other employees heard the rumble of the wall of water.
Kathy had a bad feeling but kept thinking he was in a bad cell service area and would be home soon.
She said Howard’s boss called, told her about the burst pipe, and said her husband was missing.
Kathy recounted the terrifying incident, explaining that Howard was missing for over three hours.
“He heard, like, rumbling, and he thought it was an earthquake. And he went out to see and he seen the wires, the power lines moving, like they do in an earthquake,” she said.
“He looked up and the gush of water was already coming.”
Kathy said Howard fell 35 feet into the Yuba River, where he was caught in the cold water, caught in churning water as if he was in a washing machine.
“He got swept to a big rock in the middle of the river. And then he prayed, ‘God save me,'” she said. “And about that time, another water shot him across to the riverbank.”
Kathy said he watched Cal Fire rescue his coworkers and tried to wave at them. She said drones couldn’t pick up his body heat because he was suffering from hypothermia.
They finally spotted him from the helicopter and saved him.
Howard nearly drowned and was unresponsive for eight minutes before medics resuscitated him. Kathy described his injuries, a collapsed lung, broken collarbone, ribs, knee, and deep cuts.
“I call it rock rash. You know how people get road rash? He has rock rash from head to toe,” she said. “He’s alive. And that’s all that really matters to me. He can be broken into all the pieces he wants to be, but he’s here.”
She said when he woke up after three days, he wanted to talk to her, but he was intubated.
He wrote her a note with a heart, expressing his love for her.
“I love you because all I told you the whole time, I love you, I love you out there. You got this,” she said.
Kathy and Howard later watched the video from LiveCopter 3, which captured the water and mudslide. Kathy said she gets the same uneasy feeling she had that day when watching it, knowing her husband was caught in that water.
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