Thirty-nine year-old Vincent Duffus and his wife Juanita, 32, of Gore Terrace in St Andrew are now community heroes after their dramatic rescue of a man who was being washed away by raging flood waters in the Grants Pen gully during heavy afternoon showers yesterday.

Police said the rescued man was driving a motor vehicle, owned by Carreras Ltd, with two Guardsman security guards onboard, when they attempted to cross a ford in Grants Pen.

But the water pulled the vehicle down the gully, and eventually lodged it at the rear of a premises near Wedcome Drive, off Shortwood Road.

Last night, Deputy Superintendent Beau Rigabie of the Grants Pen Police Station told the Observer that the guards were escorting the vehicle.

“One of the guards managed to jump through a window, while the other was assisted by residents,” said Rigabie.

However, the driver was unable to get to safety and was washed down the gully.

The police were unable to provide the identity of the men, but said they were taken to hospital.

But even as the residents basked in their act of goodwill, it was the heroics of the Duffus couple that were related to the Observer with enthusiasm.

Soaked and muddy from their ordeal, the couple exchange hugs and kisses as they recalled their efforts to save the man who they said drifted past their home in the murky, debris-filled waters.

“I don’t know where I got the strength from. I just saw him drifting down the gully and I jumped on top of my house and rushed towards him,” said Vincent Duffus. “He washed up and hung on to the bank and my wife rushed for a rope which I threw into the water for him to hold on to.”

Duffus said that the man’s weight, “about 200 pounds”, was too much for him alone to pull, so he had to hold on to the rope while comforting the traumatised man until help arrived.

“The whole time he was just holding on to the rope and begging me not to let him go. I had to keep telling him that he was all right and that he should not worry,” Duffus said, adding that his wife called firefighters and the police in the meantime.

“There are a lot of stones and debris in the water and he had a lot of cuts and bruises all over his body,” Duffus said.

“I am just glad that they are alive,” added Juanita, who said that the man had a huge cut on one of his feet.

Yesterday’s rains flooded 15 roads in Kingston and St Andrew and St Catherine, leaving seven impassable.

In St Catherine, the roadway from Tulloch to Zion Hill Bridge was impassable, while in St Andrew, the corridors from Stony Hill to Parkes Road; Golden Spring to Mount Airy; Papine to Redlight District, near Irish Town; Maryland to Woodford; Woodford to Norbrook and the road from Stony Hill to Toms River, which leads to the Junction in St Mary were all blocked.

National Works Agency spokesman Stephen Shaw said other roads affected by the heavy downpour were the stretch from the Zion Hill Bridge to Freetown and Zion Hill Bridge to Parkes Road, both in St Catherine.

The corridor from Guava Ridge to Coopers Ridge in St Andrew was heavily silted, while debris and silt affected the Old Stony Hill Road, Norbrook Drive and Orange Grove.

Shaw said teams from the agency were mobilised to reopen all the blocked roadways and carry out damage assessments on the corridors.