Road washes out, car nosedives 20 feet

WHITE RIVER TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) - Two young men were not seriously injured when their car nosedived 20 to 25 feet into a water-filled ditch after rain washed out a road.

Kyle Cloutier and Nikoli Wallace were driving east on Hancock Road near Chase Road in White River Township early Wednesday morning.

They said they didn't notice the road had washed away until it was too late. Their Chrysler 300 nosedived and landed on its roof into the ditch, according to a news release from the Muskegon County Sheriff's Department.

"What I remember is trying to hit my brake and I just heard eeeek, and it all went black. I opened my eyes and water was shooting into the car," Cloutier told 24 Hour News 8.

"And we just went straight off and I felt him hit the brakes, and the weight from the nose of the car just brought us straight down. And then we hit that water and we went down and it was like something out of the movies," added Wallace.

As the upside-down car started to fill with water, Cloutier later told police at the hospital, he was able to locate a door handle in the cold water and crawl out. Wallace told police he was also able to get out safely.

==24 Hour News 8's Steve Kelso spoke with the two men about what they say saved their lives. Watch that interview above.==

The men, both 20 and from Montague, huddled on top of a drainage pipe in the trench. 

"I honestly thought it was it, thought it was over. I was peaceful with the fact that I wasn't making it out of there," said Wallace.

"I wasn't getting that peace right there. I was like, no, we're getting out of this. No way is this were it ends," said Cloutier.

They used Wallace's waterproof cellphone to call 911 around 3:45 a.m.

"The road's flooded out. We crashed our car into the river. We're on top of a storm drain the middle of the river right now. The car's completely under water. Please help," a frantic Wallace told 911 dispatchers. "We got out of the car, thank God. It's completely flooded. We're freezing cold. Our clothes are still on. We're freezing."

Dispatchers initially had trouble pinpointing where the young men were. After a few minutes, they were able to get a location and sent emergency crews to help them get out of the hole.

Click here to listen to more of those 911 call recordings

Emergency personnel arrived and used a ladder to rescue Cloutier and Wallace. The victims were extremely wet and cold, and one of them had an injured leg. Cloutier was treated for hypothermia.

The portion of the road where the crash happened is unlit.

It is now closed between Chase Road and Indian Bay Road as crews repair the damage.