Birmingham floods: Man smashes car window to rescue mum and girl, 3

A passer-by climbed a bridge and smashed a car window to rescue a mum and her three-year-old daughter moments before it washed away in floods.

Liam Stych leapt into action in Hall Green, Birmingham, after the car became trapped in rising flood water.

The dramatic rescue was captured on video, showing Mr Stych shimmying along a small footbridge as the car was almost completely submerged.

"I'm not a hero, I'm just a human being with good instincts," he said.

The video, filmed by his partner Tia Draper, captured the woman screaming to Mr Stych that there were two of them in the car including her daughter. The woman had driven through a ford in Green Road, near Sarehole Mill.

"She was saying 'my baby, my baby, please get my baby out of the car," he told the BBC at the scene on Tuesday.

"I'm a father, I've got kids. It was just instincts, I had to do something," he said.

Quick-thinking Mr Stych got a rope from his own car and tied the woman's vehicle to the bridge to stop it washing away.

He then managed to smash the back windows to get the child before it was engulfed.

"I said to the woman, 'now's your time you know, take my hand and we can go'," Mr Stych added.

"At that moment she just put her arms out to me for help."

Mr Stych said the events had happened fast and he had spotted the troubled car as he went out for a walk with his partner.

"I don't know how we did it, but we sort of jumped in a way that we made it on to the grass," he continued.

Ms Draper, who is five months pregnant, said she had also tried to help with the effort before Mr Stych waded in.

"The car was going with the current," the mother-to-be said. "It was just scary."

Beaming with pride, she added: "It's amazing, it was such a quick instinct, he was trying to protect me at the same time as [he] looked after the people."

Eyewitness Shamim Uddin added: "He just jumped in, he broke the window, took the baby out.

"He got a rope from his car, tied up the car on to the railing, on to the bridge, and then he took the lady out and he saved both of them."

The Environment Agency (EA) has issued dozens of flood warnings and alerts for the West Midlands.

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