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Anne Arundel County Police Officer Elizabeth Myers had to think quickly on Monday, Dec. 26, when a plane went down in Beards Creek in Riva near the 3000 block of Stonehenge Drive near the South River.
In body-cam footage released by the department, Myers can be seen leaping into action on Monday morning, throwing a kayak into the icy waters, and getting advice from some boaters on the dock near the site of the plane crash.
It wasn’t oars that Myers used, however, instead, the conditions forced her to traverse the water, using a pair of screwdrivers like ski poles to get to the pilot, who was taken aboard a different kayak after being rescued by Good Samaritans in the water who witnessed the incident.
Police say that the pilot, Frederick resident Steve Couchman, was hospitalized on Monday after crashing his Piper Cherokee single-engine plane.
Officials said that the initial investigation determined that moments after Couchman took off from the airport, the engine of his plane began sputtering. Witnesses later said that they could hear the engine failing before the splash landing in nearby Beards Creek.
According to police, while the plane was sinking into the creek, Couchman was able to exit the plane and stood on the wing until he was rescued by the kayakers and Myers.
“Oars don’t work on ice, but screwdrivers do,” a spokesperson from the Anne Arundel County Police Department mused. "Watch the rescue from our viewpoint in the video.
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