‘I wouldn’t be here without them’: Woman recounts harrowing Cass County water rescue

By Donna Pitman

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    CASS COUNTY, Missouri (KMBC) — The routine drive Alexis Sisson took countless times, and nearly every morning, turned anything but routine last spring.

“I settled with myself at least twice that I was gonna die that morning,” she said.

But, through a series of quick thoughts and fast actions, Sisson didn’t die. That fact is one that still baffles her weeks later. It’s also a huge credit to the team of Cass County rescue workers who got to her before it was too late.

“They are my angels,” she said. “I wouldn’t be here without them. They are my angels.”

Around 4 a.m. May 17, Sisson was headed to work through a patch of rural highway. South State Route E had nothing but the moon to light it. It was raining. It was pitch black. As soon as she turned her high beams on, “I hit the puddle,” she said.

“You hear an awful ‘chh-hh’ sound!” she remembered.

After that, her truck’s path was out of her hands for a quarter of a mile.

Carried by floodwater, her truck took her over the highway, down an embankment, into the water of West Branch Crawford Creek, under a bridge and down the creek’s path before coming to a stop and sinking underwater.

“I used to be on the swim team!” Sisson summoned every survival skill she had, grabbing her cellphone, rolling her window down, and hoisting herself onto the top of her truck.

“Thank God this phone is waterproof. It saved my life!” As her truck began taking on water, Sisson grabbed on to a tree branch where she clung for life while calling 911.

Courtney Peregine was part of the team of 911 dispatchers that answered Sisson’s desperate call for help.

“There were so many times I thought we were going to lose her,” Peregine said.

Pings from Sisson’s phone showed her on the dispatch computer as being in the water. “I was like, she’s in the water!”

Peregine dispatched Cass County Deputy Spencer Teegarden, while her partner kept Sisson calm over the phone.

“Cass is a big county,” Teegarden said. He was a half an hour away — at least — when he was dispatched to help. With the rain, he wasn’t sure how long it would take to get to her.

Once he found Sisson, he couldn’t reach her. The water was too high.

“I watched it go from– below her shoulders– up to her neck, in 10 or 15 minutes,” he said.

The deputy talked to Sisson about her job, her family and her plans. — anything to keep her alive, focused, and thinking of a future.

An hour after her nightmare began, rescuers were able to reach Sisson and bring her to solid ground. She was admitted to the hospital with hypothermia but is otherwise physically okay.

The 911 dispatchers were at the end of a long shift at the end of their week when they answered Sisson’s call. Both went home grateful they were there for her.

Teegarden went home and washed his uniform, grateful the ordeal ended as it did.

When asked if they feel they are heroes, they say what most heroes do: “I was just doing my job.”

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