Raiders assistant athletic trainer Chris Cortez is being hailed as a hero after he jumped into the Oakland estuary and swam to a sinking car to rescue the woman inside.
Cortez was in his car with his wife and his neighbor, Taryn Griffin, when they saw a car that ran off the road and into the Oakland estuary. Cortez and Griffin both jumped in, as did a third person, and they all got to the car in time to help the woman out and get her to the shore. The whole thing was captured by a passerby’s cell phone camera, and Cortez recounted the incident in an interview with Raiders.com.
“We got the woman to roll down her window and the car started going under,” Cortez told Raiders.com. “Taryn, being the awesome swimmer that she is, dove right in and so I just went in right after her. And so did another individual, and we fortunately got her out of there without a scratch, which is pretty amazing. Nobody got hurt.”
Cortez said he sustained some “very minor” scratches in the process, but other than that everyone emerged unscathed. He joked that swimming to the car wasn’t a problem: “We had already eaten, but it had been over 30 minutes, so we didn’t have any cramps.”
Channel Finder
“An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea.”[1]From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Great job by a Raider, now cue humboldt and the haters in 3,2,1
Let’s see what the Raider haters have to post on this.
Raider Nation salutes you, Chris.
Well done sir!
Kudos to Mr. Cortez. You have to be brave to jump into the Oakland Estuary. If you’ve ever seen the Oakland Estuary you’ll know what I’m talking about.
“We had already eaten, but it had been over 30 minutes, so we didn’t have any cramps.”
Love this.
So a Raiders’ coach is able to rescue a sinking vessel? I presume he is a new hire. Nice work Cortez.
kudos do the three heros who swam out to rescue the woman. the person who waited on shore with the cameraphone? yeah, notsomuch.
Thank you Mr. Cortez. This is what the NFL and NFL players should look to as to how they should conduct themselves as professionals.
Maybe he can rescue his boss at work from a sinking ship.
Chris said it was fine except for all the skeletons with their feet encased in concrete scraping at his legs.
Wait, I thought every Raider player and employee was a criminal? Oh that’s right, that’s just another outdated worn out excuse by uneducated football “fans.”
Well done by all 3 men involved, you all were courageous in saving a life, and you should all be proud of that.
This will be a great story to re-tell in February when the Raiders are going for their fourth SB title.
The Raiders vessel has won 3 Super Bowls, how many have the SeaHags won?
Loser.
Great story.
For what it’s worth, I just want to say I do appreciate some GOOD NEWS on this website. Kudos to the editors for finding this.
You are a hero Chris! Excellent work!!
Too bad this will be the highlight of the Raiders 2012 season.