Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 5, 1995 TAG: 9511030113
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: G-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: S.D. HARRINGTON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"No, just lucky," he said.
That's because if Mason Creek had had its way, this Salem Rescue Squad volunteer wouldn't be around today to tell the story he's retold dozens of times.
Cunningham was all but confirmed dead for about five hours that Monday afternoon after fellow crew member Kevin Turner watched helplessly as the creek's raging current swept Cunningham away.
Cunningham and other squad members had been responding to a call at Tultex's Roanoke Fashions plant on Kessler Mill Road near Mason Creek, where about 60 employees were trapped inside. The plant had nearly been turned into an island by the once-tiny creek.
Two of the squad members, Richie Bolton and Robert Wilcox, tried to reach the plant by boat, but its motor was no match for the water. The boat was hurled into a telephone pole, then it spun out of control.
Cunningham went after them on foot with only a rope to keep him from being swept into the heart of the creek's rage.
The rope was little help. He lost his footing and the water engulfed him, sending him 50 to 100 feet down the creek. He tried to grab a fire hydrant along the way, but couldn't hang on. Then he was swept toward a truck, which was weighted down by its cargo, and he locked his hands onto the grill.
Turner went after Cunningham.
"I was screaming for Kevin, God and everyone else to come get me out of there," Cunningham said recently.
Something - possibly a log - temporarily pinned his legs against the truck's chassis. Then the floodwater sucked him under the truck with such force that his hands were cut up trying to hold onto the grill.
He held onto the rope, but it stopped him only briefly. The rope came loose and the water pulled Cunningham the rest of the way under the vehicle, then he cleared the truck and was able to get air. Cunningham said that if he had been better at tying knots he could have been trapped under the truck which was covered in water to its chassis.
Just before Cunningham went under the truck, he had caught a glimpse of Turner coming after him.
"The last thing I saw was the current getting to him and him go under," Cunningham said.
After being swept about 100 yards downstream, Cunningham managed to grab a small tree. He climbed out of the water and fastened himself to a fork in the tree with his belt.
All he could do was wait for the water to recede. He watched a helicopter crew rescue the Tultex employees from the roof of the building.
He said he couldn't help but wonder how he would explain to the families of the other three crew members why he wasn't able to save them.
Meanwhile, Salem Police Chief Harry Haskins announced that one of the squad members had been lost in the flood. Cunningham's wife listened to the police scanner and heard that her husband was missing.
Nearly five hours later, when the waters had receded about 4 feet, Cunningham came out of the tree and climbed up the muddy banks of Mason Creek. The temperature was dropping, and he knew if he waited any longer hypothermia would get him before the creek did.
The first person to spot him was a meter reader and former rescue squad member, Dale DeWease.
"Dale grabbed me and hollered, 'You're alive!'" Cunningham said. "The first thing I asked him was, 'How many did we lose?'"
Bolton, Wilcox and Turner were all rescued from the creek that day, but Bolton and Turner didn't want to talk about the flood during a recent roundtable discussion with squad members.
Cunningham says the praise should be reserved for those who kept at the job, believing they had lost three and possibly four crew members.
"That makes them the real heroes of the day," he said.
by CNB