CAPE CORAL, Fla. – The video showing the moment a woman was pulled from a car that crashed into a Cape Coral canal was just released by the Cape Coral Police Department.
The more than 14 hours of body-worn camera footage released by CCPD shows police officers and firefighters working together to save Flabia Paredes-Lamas, 30, who drove her car into the canal just after 5:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 25, 2023.
The crash happened on NE 12th Street, just off Andalusia Boulevard.
According to an original report from the police department, as officers were responding, Paredes-Lamas was on the phone with 911. All of a sudden, the call dropped as dispatchers heard her take one final breath.
Moments later, the first officer arrived on the scene.
“4302. The vehicle is fully submerged underwater,” an officer said in a newly released body cam recording.
From the banks of the canal, they could still see the lights from the car sitting just beneath the water.
“4330. Myself and Tango 42 are going to go in the water. Someone’s still in the vehicle,” another officer called over the radio.
Moments later, all the camera could see if the ground as he took his vest off and ventured into the canal.
For several excruciatingly long minutes, police and firefighters are desperately trying to reach Paredes Lamas.
“4302. They have a female out of the vehicle,” an officer called over the radio in the recording.
When they do, her limp and motionless body, barely breathing, is pulled from the water.
“She’s got water in her mouth,” yelled a first responder.
“Ready? One, two, three,” they yelled in unison while lifting her up a ladder.
Call it modern medicine or a miracle, but in the middle of the night, medics managed to bring Paredes-Lamas back to life.
Footage shows her wrapped in a blanket and sitting in the back of the ambulance.
But now the story turns from a heroic rescue to how did she end up in the canal in the first place?
Friend: “In Lehigh to bring her here.”
Officer: “So you picked her up in Lehigh, brought her home.”
Friend: “Yes.”
Officer: “Thirty minutes ago?”
Friend: ” Yes.”
Officer: “And then she called you guys and said she was in a canal?”
Friend: “Yes.”
Paredes-Lamas friend, who just minutes before dropped her off at her house, also jumped in the canal to help.
So why did she drive into the canal?
“I don’t have a great nose, but I swear I smell alcohol,” said a paramedic in the ambulance.
“We have reason to believe that you’re impaired. You drove your vehicle into a canal,” a police officer told Paredes-Lamas.
“I want to go home,” Paredes-Lamas responded. “Take me. I’m tired. I’m falling asleep. Right now, I want to go home.”
Less than an hour after her near-lifeless body was carried from the canal, she’s now in the middle of a field sobriety test. Officers said she failed.
“I’m going to place you under arrest for DUI,” an officer told Paredes-Lamas.
She was booked into the Lee County Jail later that morning.
Fast forward to early July, Paredes-Lamas entered a no-contest plea to the charge of DUI.
A judge sentenced her to 6 months probation, mandatory DUI school, 50 hours of community service, and other penalties.