VIDEO: A Durham police officer and a firefighter were taken to a hospital after they were injured during an attempted water rescue late Tuesday afternoon near The Streets at Southpoint Mall, officials said.
Durham police responded just after 5:50 p.m. to a report of a crash involving a car on the 6900 block of Fayetteville Road, which is just south of the Interstate 40 interchange.
The driver of the car left the roadway near the mall and drove into the pond, resulting in the vehicle becoming submerged, police said. As Durham fire crews first arrived, they saw the car “sinking into the pond,” a news release from the Durham Fire Department said. “The responders immediately entered the water to provide life-saving measures and remove the driver,” Durham Fire Department Battalion Chief Mitchell Morkunas said in the release.