Yamato Delivery Driver Finds Minicar Sinking in River, Jumps in and Rescues Woman

The Yomiuri Shimbun

13:23 JST, November 26, 2023

Tomoya Taniguchi, 32, a deliveryman at Yamato Transport’s Tottori Chuo Office in Tottori City, received a certificate of appreciation from the Kozan Fire Department for rescuing a woman from a sinking car in the river.

When Taniguchi returned to his truck for pickup and delivery a little after 6 p.m. on October 4, he noticed something shining in the dim light of the nearby Kozan River. Upon closer inspection, he saw that a minicar was more than half submerged in water and its interior lamps were glowing.

Through the open driver’s window, he saw something moving, and when he called out to the driver as well as immediately called 119, a woman responded, “I’m scared.” Taniguchi jumped into the river, pulled the woman out of the window at a depth where he could not get his footing, and lifted her into a small boat that was nearby and rescued her. A few minutes later, the car sank. The rescued woman, in her 20s from Tottori City, suffered minor injuries but was not fatally injured.

Taniguchi said, “When I told my 3-year-old twin sons about it, they said, ‘Dad is a hero.'”