Preston Slade Crawford

I am not related to this boy but this story broke my heart to see his parents tried so hard to save
him to have him slip right out of there arms into the angels hands,
his mother recalls there last moments
CARROLLTON, Ga. (Sept. 23) -- A clanking noise woke Bridgett Crawford after midnight on Monday. She
was sleeping on the couch with her 1-year-old son, Cooper, as rain pounded their mobile home off
Horsley Mill Road near Snake Creek.
Where was this strange sound coming from? Bridgett got up and stepped into the kitchen -- where
water covered her feet. Peering outside, she saw one of the family's cars half-submerged.

'You Can't Imagine'.
As Bridgett rushed around the home, her husband, Craig, came out of the bedroom, where he'd fallen
asleep with their other son, 2-year-old Preston Slade. They looked in the boys' room. It was
flooded.
Bridgett placed a frantic call to Craig's parents, who live just up the hill. "You have to come get
us!" she told them. Within two minutes, the young mother and father had thrown clothes on their
boys, and they were ready to escape. Bridgett looked outside again and watched as floodwater whisked
the car away.
Suddenly, the house shifted. Lifted off its foundation, the 14-by-70-foot trailer began to spin.
"We either stay in here, let the doors close up, and we all drown," she remembered saying to her
husband, "or each one of us grabs a baby, we tell them we love them and jump out and fight."
Craig pried open the trailer door. Then Bridgett, holding Cooper, leaped into the water. Craig,
clasping Slade, followed.
Craig's parents approached in their truck. "What was a creek [had] turned into a raging river," said
his father, J.C. Crawford.
"I watched the mobile home explode."

The force of the water slammed Bridgett into a tree. The 24-year-old mother fought to straddle a
branch and wrap her right arm around another one -- the left held the 30-pound boy tight to her. She
yelled for Craig, who called back from another tree.
"Where's Slade at?" she hollered.
From the darkness, and above the roar of water and rain, she heard her 26-year-old husband respond:
"Baby, I don't know. I lost him."
He had slipped through his arms after they'd jumped. An 18-foot wall of water hit them both.
Over and over, Bridgett screamed her son's name.
"Slade! Slade!"
The chubby-cheeked boy, also called Scooter, loved SpongeBob, Spiderman popsicles and
Harley-Davidson motorcycles. He liked to tattle on his parents when he thought they were bad.
"Slade! Slade!"
Craig's mother, Pat, stood with her husband, paralyzed.
"You can't imagine what I felt, watching my kids down there begging for help, and I couldn't get to
them," said the veteran nurse who has spent 30 years assisting others. "I couldn't fix it. I
couldn't help them."
The 911 calls poured in that night, sending firefighters and other first responders to desperate
scenes across the county. Capt. Tommy Hopson of the Carroll County Fire Department was first to
arrive to help the Crawfords. Power lines were down. Fallen trees blocked the way. The bridge over
Snake Creek was washed out.
Flooding from days of storms across the Southeast has killed at least 10 people and left thousands
homeless. The storms relented Tuesday but have left much of the region under stagnant water. Here,
two residents stand at the edge of Sweetwater Creek, which left the mobile home park where they live
in Austell, Ga., flooded Tuesday
Flooding from days of storms across the Southeast has killed at least 10 people and left thousands
homeless. The storms relented Tuesday but have left much of the region under stagnant water. Here,
two residents stand at the edge of Sweetwater Creek, which left the mobile home park where they live
in Austell, Ga., flooded Tuesday.
"Everything that could go wrong, went wrong," a still-exhausted Hopson recalled Tuesday.
In his 23 years with the department, he had never experienced anything like it. Trained in technical
rope and swift-water rescues and an experienced member of the dive team, he still could not have
imagined how the night would unfold.
With the help of more than a dozen other rescue workers and volunteers, Hopson fought for hours
trying to reach the Crawfords. Time and again, men staggering into the water on harnesses and ropes
were knocked off their feet.
As the hours passed, Cooper got squirmy in his mother's arms. Bridgett sang to him -- "That 'Hush
Little Baby' song," she said -- and gave him soothing kisses. But he was taking in water despite her
one-armed efforts to keep him up above it, and when he fell asleep on her chest, she feared he was
gone.
Hopson recalled her calling out, saying Cooper was dead. He worried the team's fight had turned from
rescue to recovery.
For six hours, Bridgett clung to that tree. Not for herself.
"I wasn't worried for my life. I was worried for my baby's life. After I knew Slade was gone, I
didn't care what happened to me."
But when Hopson belayed down from another tree to where Bridgett was perched and took the boy from
her, Cooper rolled back his head and looked around.
With that, Hopson said, the mood lifted -- even if only for a bit. Next they plucked Bridgett from
the tree. Then Craig from his.
Hopson's work wasn't done. Without knowing where Slade was, he refused to walk away.
"I just couldn't leave," he said. "I couldn't leave till I knew he was found."
A half-mile away, evidence of the 18-foot torrent that took over the usually serene, 2½ -foot-deep
creek remained on Tuesday. A 20-acre hayfield, now flattened, was covered in sand, dead fish and
pieces of the Crawfords' home.

A blue bedsheet was wrapped around a utility pole, just feet from the pile of debris where Slade's
body was found Monday afternoon. A red T-shirt, still draped over a nearby stone wall, marked where
rescuers tried to work on the boy.
The family of James Williams, 54, owns the farm where the boy was found. Over and over his phone
rang, as callers in what he described as a "close-knit little country community" asked who was
bringing the Crawfords food, when and how a collection would be taken and whether the details of the
funeral, scheduled for Thursday, had been finalized.
Before she headed out to select Slade's casket on Tuesday, Bridgett -- covered in purple bruises and
scrapes -- sat on her in-laws' porch beside Pat. Craig wasn't around, and J.C. had wandered back
inside. They spoke about what happened in the earliest hours of Monday, still struggling to make
sense of it all.
Down the slope behind the home were signs of where the trailer once stood: a bent satellite dish, a
red Jeep Cherokee smashed against a tree, piles of wood and faucets.
Mixed in was a waterlogged teddy bear, children's clothing and a muddy Tonka truck -- tangled
remnants of what once was.
this is his obituary
Master Preston Slade Crawford, age 2 of Horsley Mill Rd., Carrollton, passed away Monday, September
21, 2009. He was born December 12, 2006 in Carroll County, Georgia the son of Bridgett Danielle
Lawrence Crawford and Jerry Craig Crawford, Jr. Besides his parents, Slade is survived by a brother,
Cooper Gunner Crawford; paternal grandparents, J.C. & Pat Crawford of Carrollton; maternal
grandparents, Glenda & Royce Rowland of Augusta. Funeral services will be conducted Friday,
September 25, 2009 from Martin & Hightower Heritage Chapel with Rev. Joey Dedman and Dr. Steve Davis
officiating. Interment will follow in Carroll Memory Gardens. The family will receive friends at the
funeral home Thursday from 5 PM until 8 PM. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made
to First National Bank of Georgia, Donations for Slade Crawford, 201 Maple St., Carrollton, Ga.,
30117. The family will like to extend their sincere appreciation to Carroll County Fire & Rescue,
Carroll County Sheriff’s Office, the many volunteers, Department of Natural Resources, Carroll
EMC, Georgia Forestry, Carrollton City Fire Department, Carrollton City Police Department and
Carroll County Inmates. Messages of condolences may be sent to the family at
www.martin-hightower.com. Martin & Hightower Heritage Chapel of Carrollton has charge of the
arrangements.

Facts

Born: December 12, 2006
Place of Birth: Carrollton, Ga.
Death: September 21, 2009
Memorial Donations

Memorial donations can be made to First National Bank of Geogia, Donations for Slade Crawford, 201
Maple St., Carrollton, Ga. 30117