A hero dad has told how he saved a woman and her three-year-old daughter after he saw their car being swept away in a flooded river.<br /><br />Liam Stych, 28, leapt into the raging torrent after hearing the woman screaming “Help me, help me, please save my baby!”<br /><br />Dramatic video shows the woman’s car being dragged under a footbridge as floods surged through Hall Green in Birmingham at 4.15pm on Tuesday (2/1).<br /><br />The fearless dad dangled off the bridge and smashed the rear passenger window and used ratchet straps to lash the woman’s Fiat Punto to railings to stop it sinking.<br /><br />Incredibly, he saved the little girl by "hurling" her into the lap of his pregnant partner Tia Draper, 27, who was standing on the bridge.<br /><br />West Midlands Police hailed Liam a “local hero” but the modest dad-of-two insisted he just acted “on instinct”.<br /><br />He said: “My partner is five months pregnant so we went out for a walk for some exercise. <br /><br />“We were walking over a bridge and I heard a woman screaming from inside a car. <br /><br />“She was shouting ‘Help me, help me, please save my baby she’s in the back!’<br /><br />“The front of her car was pointing down into the water so I dangled off the bridge but was careful not to put any more weight on the car in case it sank.<br /><br />“I told the woman to remain calm and unwind her window and to hand me her child.<br /><br />“I said to her ‘Give me babbie’s hand, I’ll get her out’. <br /><br />"The woman could only get her window half-way down so I took the babbie and literally hurled her behind me and into the lap of Tia who was on the bridge.”<br /><br />The roadworks engineer and traffic manager then sprinted back to his work van and grabbed a set of 3.5 tonne ratchet straps.<br /><br />He said: “Once the babbie was safe I ran to get the straps and climbed back to the car and smashed the back passenger window.<br /><br />“I secured the car to the bridge with the ratchet straps so it wouldn’t drift any further under the bridge.<br /><br />“I then told the woman to climb into the back and get out the window.<br /><br />“She managed to get out and we then held hands and just jumped together into the water after a count of three. <br /><br />“It was about 5ft deep but was really strong and I dragged her out of the water. <br /><br />“The ambulance crew turned up and checked her and the child over. <br /><br />“I think if I hadn’t done what I did the car would have been dragged under the bridge and there would have been no way of getting them out.”<br /><br />Liam, who has two children from a previous relationship, said he wanted people to understand the lethal danger of floods.<br /><br />He said: “It was pure luck that we were there when it happened. <br /><br />"I didn't think about what I was doing, I just acted on instinct.<br /><br />“The poor lady has lost her car and her shopping which was in the back but she and her daughter could have lost their lives. <br /><br />“People don’t understand how powerful floods can be. <br /><br />“It’d been raining heavily but the roads suddenly turned into rivers and the streams turned into raging rivers. <br /><br />“I just managed to stay calm and thought clearly about what needed to be done. <br /><br />“I didn’t want to make the situation worse by panicking and sinking the car with my weight. My only thought was to get them both out safely.”
