It’s a parent’s job to protect their kids from the world, and while it may not always be possible to be there, they will try their hardest.
Ashley Holland is no different. On January 21, 2019, Ashley, at 24-years old, thought she was going to die when her car was suddenly skidding across black ice and toward an icy pond. In the backseat was Macy, her four-year-old daughter.
The car ran off the road while they were on the way to a birthday party. Ashley told CBC Radio’s ‘Mainstreet’ the day after the accident, “Terrifying, completely terrifying. My daughter just started screaming and I was just thinking in my head, ‘The water, please just don’t go in the water, like please.’”
Sadly, her prayers were to no avail. Suddenly they were upside down in the pond near Hantsport, Nova Scotia; they were sinking into the ice-cold water. Macy screamed, “Mom, I’m going to die!” as the passenger side window smashed to pieces.
Ashley said, “When something like that happens, it’s like your parental instincts just kick in, right?”
While water filled the car, Ashley unbuckled her seatbelt and swam through one of the broken windows. Then, she tried to open Macy’s door, and she’d managed, but her hand slipped and the door shut again.
She didn’t think she was going to be able to save Macy. But she swam back into the car through the window, went to the backseat, and unbuckled her daughter. “I just grabbed her and pulled her out, and I tried to keep her above the water. I didn’t want her to be hypothermic. So, from the waist down she was soaked, but I mean, her hair didn’t even get wet and I don’t know how I did it,” the mom says.
Despite feeling like she was going to pass out, they reached a nearby embankment, and Ashley told Macy to hail a nearby car. Finally, they were found. Help arrived right away.
Captain Ryan Richard of the Brooklyn volunteer fire department told CBC Radio’s ‘Maritime Noon’ that, “To be able to swim to shore and get up over that embankment is totally unheard of.” What Ashley accomplished was nothing short of a miracle, especially with a four-year-old in her arms.
Ashley and Macy were “hypothermic, in shock, and disoriented,” according to CBC News, but they’re okay. All thanks to Ashley’s quick thinking and determination to save her daughter.
Click on the video below to watch a news special on the mother-daughter duo.
