When a car ended up in the C-8 Extension Canal along Loch Ness Drive, Miami Lakes resident Steven Monroy dove in to help the driver who was alive when she was pulled from her SUV to shore.
That was two years ago.
On Feb. 19, Monroy was at the same embankment with the Miami Lakes Neighborhood Improvement Committee, Mayor Josh Dieguez and council members Steven Herzberg and Alex Sanchez to unveil a new life preserver, one of 10 installed near town lakes and canals.
“The day it happened I thought the car rolled in … and I was in the water instantly,” Monroy told The Miami Laker.
“I feel good about this,” he said about the town’s new lifesaving ring that stands like a sentry in his neighborhood.
The project was inspired by Aden Perry, 17, who had attempted a similar rescue in 2022 in Sunrise. He and that crash victim did not survive.
Sarah Perry created the Aden Perry Good Samaritan and Scholarship Fund to honor her son.
Her goal is to get municipalities to install life preservers at canals and lakes, to be available for good Samaritans.
“We continue the work [Aden] started that night to try to save someone else’s life,” Perry said.
Over four years, she said she has donated 600 life preservers around the State of Florida and in South Carolina.
She gave 10 rings to Miami Lakes, and the town spent nearly $4,000 to build the structures that hold them and provided the signs, officials said.
The message: Throw, don’t go.
“This was an initiative that was brought to us by Aden Perry’s mom,” Neighborhood Improvement Committee Chair Rudy LLoredo said. “More than anything, it’s to educate people, because a lot of us want to do something good. Sometimes we don’t have the training [to rescue someone and], we don’t know these waterways [and] what’s inside.”
The rings are available where a car could easily end up in the water.
Committee Secretary Helen Roldan said they had considered putting them at lakeside beaches in town, but fortunately no one had drowned at those locations and so they focused on the canals near busy roads.
A lifesaver installation at Pocket Park 44, at the corner of Miami Lakes Drive and Northwest 67 Avenue was sponsored by Litigation Process Servers LLC and Juan & Madelin D’Arce and Family.
A Miami-Dade Fire Rescue firefighter demonstrated how to use a ring: Unhook it and the rope from the display post, hold the end loop or step on it before throwing the ring to the person in distress.
Calling 911 and tossing the ring are the steps to take, rather than entering the water, according to fire rescue.
“My hope is that the next time there is a water emergency … that someone can save a life,” Perry said. “You cannot predict where the next water emergency is going to be.”
To see a large map of life preserver locations visit Bit.ly/40on1RG.
For more information about the the Aden Perry Good Samaritan and Scholarship Fund, go to TinyUrl.com/v5whewnz.