David Phung was about 8 when he learned how to swim.
His childhood home had a pool in the backyard, and as a kid, he practiced until he became skilled. He got so good he eventually picked up freediving, a sport where divers hold their breath until resurfacing instead of using breathing equipment.
Nearly two decades later, at the age of 27, he would come to use that skill in a way he’d never imagined—saving a woman and her dog from drowning in a sinking car in the massive flood sweeping through Baton Rouge.
“It was definitely the most dramatic rescue of that day,” Phung says in his gentle Southern drawl.
Saving two lives is an extraordinary act of courage, but to have the moment captured on camera for the world to see is something else entirely. The scene of Phung saving the woman and her tiny white dog was filmed by someone on the rescue boat he leapt from and was put online. The video immediately went viral, shared by national and global news outlets. By September, 4 million people had viewed it.
The video served as a singular moment when the world realized just how bad the flooding was in Baton Rouge and started to pay attention.
That August day began with Phung boating around the region with family and friends, looking for people who needed to be rescued. Soon they spotted a woman driving a bright red Mazda Miata heading right into high water. Phung and his crew tried to warn her to stop, but by then it was too late, and the car had already slid partially under water.
In the moments before Phung jumped into those murky floodwaters to tear the roof off the Miata with his bare hands, his thought process was short. In fact, he didn’t have one.
“The car was sinking fast,” Phung says. “There was no time to think. It had to be done.”
He worked into the night after rescuing the woman to save more people, sometimes having to cut people out of their homes through the roofs. Phung helped more than 50 people that day, and in total more than 100 since that day. He boated around for four days in the aftermath of the flood, sometimes staying to assist with rescues until 4 a.m.
Up until recently, Phung hadn’t reunited with the woman he saved. He wasn’t interested in rumors about who the Miata really belonged to or how she obtained it. To him, that day, and every day since, was all about saving as many lives as possible.
He was perfectly fine with saving a stranger and her dog and remaining anonymous with her. When he finally did meet 53-year-old Hailey Brouillette and her dog, Sassy, nearly a month after he saved them, it was an emotional experience affirming his calling—helping the community.
Phung won’t be away from the water for long. The week before his dramatic rescue, he received his boating captain’s license, and is now starting his own fishing guide service.
Still to this day, even after the attention the viral rescue video received, after media outlets from all over the globe landed on his front yard, Phung doesn’t consider himself a hero.
“I think I was just lucky,” Phung says, smiling. “I happened to be at the right place at the right time.”
WHERE’S THE CAR NOW?
The red Mazda Miata that Phung rescued Hailey Brouillette and her dog from is now being restored by local Miata enthusiast Ethan Castille.
This story was originally published in the October issue of 225 Magazine.
