The hero teen followed the young woman’s car into the Atlantic Ocean after accidentally veering into it.
Driver Mia Samolinski aged 18, stepped on the accelerator instead of the brake when pulling her Subaru Outback out of a parking spot along the shoreline of Patchogue Bay, Long Island.
The selfless 17-year-old hero teen named Anthony Zhongor, is a classmate of Mia’s even though at the time neither of them was aware. After seeing her car plummet into the ocean he jumped out of his car and dove in right after her.
Zhongor explained, “She went pretty deep in there, she was banging on the door, banging on the window, trying to break the window, of course, and that kind of got me nervous, scared for her, so I just took my clothes off and went into the water.”
The door wouldn’t open from the outside due to the pressure difference, but Zhongor’s quick thinking noticed that his body weight tilted the front of the car downwards and brought the back of the car above water level. This allowed Samolinski to escape through the back and once free, they swam to the shore together.
Zhongor said, “She just came up to me and said, ‘Oh my God, thank you’ and was crying. It doesn’t matter who it was, they were suffering. I couldn’t watch anybody suffer in front of me.”
He is graduating this year and will be travelling to South Carolina for Marines boot camp and certainly has the graces of Mia and her family, who spoke to ABC-7 news about their thankfulness to Zhongor’s bravery.
Charles, Mia’s father said, “He jumped out of his car and jumped in, and because of that, my daughter is alive and not really harmed, It’s a miracle.”
You can watch the video of the ordeal below:
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