A Youngsville woman is calling Youngsville Police Chief, Rickey Boudreaux, her hero.
This comes after Lynette Rogers fell asleep at the wheel and flipped her car into a canal in Youngsville on Sunday morning. On Tuesday, Boudreaux and Rogers reunited for the first time since she was released from the hospital.
Sunday morning started out as a routine Sunday for Chief Boudreaux as he headed to church. A call over his police radio led to a turn of events and a rescue no one was expecting.
“I wasn’t planning on much of an active evening, so I sat around and burned the fire and then they decided they wanted to go to the casino, and I said ‘oh I really shouldn’t go, I’m really tired,’ and they said lets just go, we won’t be long,” Rogers said.
Rogers said that wasn’t true but she went against her better best judgment.
"When I was ready to come home they weren’t ready to come home. And I said ‘look, I’m tired. I need to go home, I’m falling asleep.’ And one of them didn’t want to come home, so I said ‘look… I’ll bring your friend home and she can get the car and come back and get you,’ and that’s what I did,” Rogers said.
Tired and behind the wheel, Rogers was rounding a steep corner on highway 89, when her car went through several signs, flipping over into the canal.
She was pinned in her car, upside down for hours slipping in and out of consciousness until she says there was a saving grace.
A man walking by noticed the car in the canal and called the police department to see if someone had reported the incident. Police Chief, Rickey Boudreaux, who was on his way to church, made a U-turn.
"So instead of going to church, I headed to the call location. The other first responders had arrived about two minutes before me and they were all standing around the canal and pretty much the general consensus was who was in the car had expired, due to being upside down in the water. Nobody had checked the vehicle so I immediately when I got out, just kind of jumped into action,” Boudreaux said.
What he discovered next shocked everyone at the scene.
“She was sort of a blue color. So I was expecting her to be deceased, I reached into the vehicle to touch and feel for a pulse and she popped her head up and said I’m alive. And she really startled me,” Boudreaux said.
First responders worked quickly, getting Rogers out of her Jeep. Realizing her ankle was shattered, she needed medical assistance quickly. Rogers says she owes her life to Chief Boudreaux, and he will forever be my hero.
"He’s my personal savior and I’m glad he was there for me," Rogers said.
Rogers is now home and recovering from the accident. She says a shattered foot is nothing compared to having her life.
