“If I could turn back the hands of time, I would. I would tell her she needs to quit being a superwoman,” her best friend said
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NEED TO KNOW
- A single mother of three, Sarah Jo Reeder, died after jumping into a creek to save a stranger’s child from drowning while at the park with her kids on Friday, June 19
- “That was not out of line for her whatsoever … it’s just her automatic instinct is to help another person out,” Ashley Flowers said of her late best friend
- A nearby paddleboarder pulled Reeder and the boy out of the water before calling for help, according to another friend
A Kentucky mom of three died after jumping into the water to rescue a stranger's child from drowning.
On Friday, June 19, Sarah Jo Reeder was visiting the creek at Phil Moore Park in Alvaton with some of her children when she noticed a young boy who appeared to be drowning and jumped in to save him, her close friends told local outlets WNKY and WBKO.
Melissa Donovan, a friend of the single mother for more than three decades, told WBKO that Reeder was trying to save the boy when he “eventually pulled her down trying to come up.”
“Ultimately, that's how it went down,” she said, noting that she was not at the scene when the tragedy occurred. “A paddleboarder pulled her and the boy out of the water and then got emergency services on the way.”
While Reeder was taken to a nearby medical center in Bowling Green for treatment, she died hours later, per the outlets.
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“If I could turn back the hands of time, I would. I would tell her she needs to quit being a superwoman,” Ashley Flowers told WNKY of her late best friend. “It's going to be really hard. When you can't pick up the phone and just ask her… I can't even ask her questions, but what's next is we're just going to try to keep her memory alive.”
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Reeder's mother, Becky Crick, recalled hearing the tragic news of her daughter's death when her grandson called her after the incident.
“He was like, ‘Maw, we need you at the medical center. There's been an accident.' The night progressed from there. At 10:37, she passed,” she told WNKY. “It was hard to believe she was gone, but when I found out she had jumped in the water to save that little boy, that didn't surprise me. That's the way she was.”
“I'm proud of the beautiful, strong woman you would become,” Crick continued in her final words to her late daughter. “I'm proud of how you cared about other people. You are my daughter, and I love you.”
Beyond paying tribute to her daughter, Crick went on to express how grateful she was for the “angel” who jumped out of her kayak and did “everything she could to save Sarah's life.”
“At that time, the water had done so much damage, but she tried,” she said of one of the strangers who sprang into action. “She had to get her kayak in that current to get her out of it. She put herself in danger to get Sarah out of the water.”
Just as Reeder's mom was not shocked that her daughter would risk her life to save another, Flowers further attested that her late friend would “run into a burning building” if it meant she could be a hero to someone in need.
“That was not out of line for her whatsoever,” she said of Reeder's act of heroism. “Not that she doesn't make great decisions. That's not even — it's just her automatic instinct is to help another person out, like to do whatever needs to be done to get the situation fixed or to handle it … I'm sure she probably never even touched the creek until that time.”
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