WOMAN PULLED FROM FLOODWATERS; HUSBAND DROWNS IN RESCUE ATTEMPT

An Adair County woman was plucked from the raging waters of a flooding creek Tuesday night in southern Adair County, but her husband tragically drowned while trying to come to her rescue.
Forty-eight-year-old Jody Glover was rescued from her pickup truck that had been swept away by floodwaters of a creek while she was attempting to make her way to her home on Anderson Road off Greenbriar Ridge in the Breeding area of the county, but her husband, 58-year-old Bill Glover, apparently drowned when the farm tractor he was driving in an attempt to reach his wife overturned in the raging waters, causing him to be swept away. His body was found at approximately 1 p.m. yesterday around three or four miles downstream in Harrod's Fork Creek following a massive search.
According to Breeding Area Volunteer Fire Department Chief Terry Harvey, his department was altered to the emergency around 8:15 p.m. Tuesday after Jody Glover called the Adair County 911 Center and said she was trapped in floodwaters after her truck was washed off Anderson Road.
Several members of the Breeding Area VFD responded, along with other local emergency organizations, and the Swift Water Rescue teams from the Green County Rescue Squad and Taylor County Rescue Squad were summonsed.
Harvey said that Anderson Road is a very rough, dirt and rock road off Greenbriar Ridge that is crossed by several creeks, and that Glover's pickup truck was between four and five miles down the road when it was swept up by the waters.
"When we first tried to get to where she was at, the water in the creeks was so high and swift we couldn't cross them in our regular trucks, so we had to get our six-wheel-drive Army (surplus) trucks in order to ford the creeks," Harvey explained. "We also had to wait on the swift water rescue teams Green County and Taylor County to arrive, so it took us a while to get to where she was at."
Once the crews arrived at the scene, members of the two swift water rescue teams, along with members of the Breeding VFD, were able to pull Glover from her flooded truck.
"The truck was sitting sideways in the creek, and water was up over the hood almost to the windshield," he explained. "We were able to get the driver's side door and get her out of the truck."
After being rescued from the water, Jodie Glover was transported to a waiting Adair County EMS ambulance, where she was treated and then taken to Westlake Regional Hospital. While they were at the ambulance, Harvey said they found out that her husband had been trying to reach her from their home.
"After she called 911, she had called her husband, and he started out trying to reach her driving their farm tractor," he explained.
Harvey said that the emergency personnel then began searching for Bill Glover, and after a short period of time discovered the tractor he had been driving overturned in floodwaters.
"The tractor was upside down in the creek with its headlights still shining," he said, noting the water was so deep that they could barely see the tops of the rear tractor tires.
The emergency organizations, which by then had been joined by volunteers from Cumberland County and Warren County, began trying to locate Bill Glover, but after searching the area for quite some time and not finding him, the search was called off around 3 a.m.
The search was resumed around 8 a.m. yesterday, and volunteers from the Breeding Area VFD were joined by Adair Search and Rescue, the Adair County Dive Team, rescue squad teams from Cumberland and Russell counties, Kentucky Fish and Wildlife officers, and a group of volunteers on horseback.
The searchers began a massive sweep of the area on foot and using ATVs, but the search proved futile yesterday morning.
"We had searched the entire area all the way down to the bridge over Harrod's Fork at Derron Fletcher's at the end of Greenbriar, and were just getting ready to move our command center down there when Jeff Hatcher brought in a group of horseback riders," Harvey explained. "We told them to go on down Harrod's Fork and search while we relocated, and around 1 p.m. they found the victim in the bottoms on Hollygate Farm (which is located off Chance Road near Highway 704)."
Harvey said that the victim's body was found trapped in a tree that had fallen across the creek in water around six to seven feet deep.
Chief Harvey estimated that the body was recovered approximately three or four miles downstream from where the tractor overturned, but noted "it could be further, considering the way the creek twists and turns."
He recalled that when two people drowned more than 20 years ago when their car was swept off a dry bridge at the upper end of Greenbriar Ridge, the body of one of the victims was recovered from the same general area.
Photo: PREPARING TO SEARCH. Breeding Area VFD engineer Brandon Harvey, left, talked with volunteers as they prepared to resume the search for Bill Glover yesterday morning. Looking on were, from left: Adair Search and Rescue Commander Jeff Collins, Adair County Emergency Management Director Greg Thomas, and Breeding Area VFD Chief Terry Harvey. (Photo by Paul B. Hayes)