A heroic single mother of three died while saving a stranger’s child from drowning, according to police.
Sarah Jo Reeder, 42, was visiting Phil Moore Park’s in Alvaton, Kentucky with her children when she saw a little boy struggling in a creek last week and immediately jumped in the water to rescue him, WBKO reported.
A paddleboarder pulled the pair out of the water and performed lifesaving measures on Reeder as emergency services rushed to the scene. She was taken to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead hours later from lack of oxygen in her brain.
The young boy survived thanks to her heroism.
“If I could turn back the hands of time I would, I would tell her she needs to quit being a super woman,” Ashley Flowers, Reeder’s best friend, told WNKY.
Flowers said Reeder, from Bowling Green, would “run into a burning building to go after whoever … even a cat.”
“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. And so that was not out of line for her whatsoever. I’m sure she probably never even touched the creek until that time,” Flowers told WBKO.
Sarah’s mother, Becky Crick, was not surprised at what happened.
“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,” Crick said.
If she could say one last thing to her daughter, Crick said through tears she’d tell her, “I’m proud of the beautiful strong woman you would become. I’m proud of how you cared about other people. You are my daughter and I love you.”
The incident remains under investigation, officials said.
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