A blind man living in the Bahamas carried his disabled son through high floodwaters to safety during Hurricane Dorian, reports said.
Brent Lowe, a father living in Abaco with his 24-year-old son who has cerebral palsy and cannot walk, said he was scared when the storm blew the roof off of his house and forced him to carry his child to safety.
“At that time it was raining and raining hard,” Lowe recalled. “So I picked him up, threw him on my shoulder and when I stepped off my porch, my front porch, the water was chin high, up to my chin. … We all had to walk out into the water and into the wind to the neighbor’s house.”
The walk took only five minutes but seemed much longer to him.
“I was terrified,” Lowe told reporters. “I didn’t realize the water was that deep. I was thinking maybe knee deep. It wasn’t until I stepped off and I realized, oh, I wonder if it gets deeper because that means I have to swim with him, you know what I mean. But thankfully it didn’t get over my head.”
Lowe said in the years prior, he has never had to depend on anyone for anything and took care of his family on his own.
“You know, I’m 49 years old. My son is 24 years old. I’ve been disabled for 11 years. And all the time I’ve never asked anybody for anything,” he said. “I just went about me and my family and took care of my family, me and my kids with the help of my ex-wife and we did it.”
On Tuesday, Breitbart News reported that Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas with widespread destruction and flooded “the islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama with walls of water that lapped into the second floors of buildings, trapped people in attics and drowned the Grand Bahama airport under 6 feet of water.”
On Friday, hurricane force winds of 74 mph blasted North Carolina’s Outer Banks as it slowly began to weaken, Breitbart News reported.
Reports said the current death toll in the Bahamas is expected to rise “significantly,” according to authorities.
“Forty-three is the official count, many missing and this number is expected to grow significantly,” said Erica Wells Cox, a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Hubert Minnis.