Woman Reported Dead in Floods of 2014 to Meet Rescuer on 'The Doctors'

Jena David says her deep religious convictions were reaffirmed by her rescue from foodwaters by a stranger she said came from nowhere. (Screenshot: WXYZ, Channel 7, video)

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Dustin Rowen discovered Jena David wasn’t dead by surfing social media sites.

The Canton optometrist was thirsty to know more about the young woman he rescued and carried on his shoulders after her car was swamped in metro Detroit’s Aug. 11 freak flash flood.

After hearing an evening news account of what was believed for several days to be a tragic ending to her rescue and ordeal, Rowen couldn’t get her out of his head, he told The Detroit News,

He had no reason to doubt the woman, as yet unidentified, had died.

She had blacked out at Buddy’s Pizza in Warren, where Rowen carried her through chest-high floodwaters after pulling her from her submerged car.

“She really didn’t look good that night, so I figured she was dead,” Rowen said. “I did all I could save her, but I thought I was too late.”

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Their encounter had been powerful, if brief.

He had held her hand, calling on instincts rather than formal medical training that told him he should stop her from drifting off to sleep. He stayed with her until a customer, a woman wearing scrubs he thought might be a nurse, take over.

And then Rowen, who Jena David calls her “guardian angel,” waded back into the floodwaters, where David said he had appeared as if from nowhere, and back to the business of rescuing.

He logged onto his computer early on Saturday morning, the tragedy still eating at him and robbing his sleep.

“I started looking up stories to see if maybe I could contact her family,” he said.

The Detroit News headline – “ ‘I’m Alive’: Sterling Heights woman, 30, rushes to correct reports she died in flooding” – lifted his spirits.

The panicked woman he had rescued had survived.

They became friends on Facebook, exchanged phone numbers and will appear together on an episode of “The Doctors” to be filmed in California, the Detroit Free Press reports. The program airs at 10 a.m. on WXYZ, Channel 7, but it’s not clear when the episode featuring Rowen and David will be on.

“You don’t stand around taking pictures with your cellphone when someone needs help — you jump in there and help.” – Dustin Rowen

Deeply religious, David said she’s eager to share her story with the public. She told the Free Press that she had a premonition about the flooding, though she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was that gave her “a really bad feeling that morning,” she said.

She dreamt the night before the floods that the face of Jesus Christ as reflected in her mirror, and below it, her own face, upside down.

The dream, coupled with Rowen showing up when he did, were powerful affirmations of an already strong faith, David said.

“I’m a very religious person,” she told The Detroit News. “I feel in my heart God was there for me that night.”

Rowen, who had just gotten off work at a Shelby Township optometry office, had realized he couldn’t make it through the floodwaters and parked his Volkswagen on higher ground.

He looked around and was spurred to act when he saw more than two dozen people “standing around taking pictures and videos with their cellphones, not doing anything to help,” he said. “I wasn’t raised like that. I just did what I knew had to be done.”

The Good Samaritan helped “three or four” people from their cars in the flood, which hit during rush hour.

He’s not a hero, he insists.

“You don’t stand around taking pictures with your cellphone when someone needs help — you jump in there and help,” he said.