Father survives getting sucked into drain pipe, hurtled 500 feet beneath a highway: ‘I was saying my goodbyes’

An Alabama father trying to fetch his son’s soccer balls got sucked into a drain pipe and was sent hurtling through a torrent of water while he desperately struggled to hold his breath, according to reports.  

“In 36 years, I never thought I was gonna die until that night right there,” the lucky father, Drew Owen told WBRC.

Owen noticed the soccer balls were floating out of his yard of his home in Trussville during torrential rain Friday night and he ran out to get them before they got away.

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“It was dark, and this was nothing but water. But the ball was somewhere in this area,” he said, pointing to a steep ditch leading to a drainage pipe, according to WBRC. 

“I went to step to go get it, and when I did, this ditch is steep, and I stumbled into the water.”

Owen was taken completely by surprise.

He didn’t have time to take a gulp of air before he went zooming through the pipe totally inundated with water.

“The water was flowing so hard, and that whole pipe was nothing but water. So I could not breathe or anything,” he told WBRC. “I didn’t have time to… gasp for air when it happened. It happened so fast,” he added.

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He traveled more than 500 feet, beneath Highway 11 and railroad tracks, according to WVTM 13, with no idea when – or if — he would emerge from the other end alive.

“I was just praying that it was going to drop at some point soon, because I didn’t know if it was, the pipe was going all the way down Highway 11, or it was going to drop two minutes from now,” Owen told WVTM 13. “I honestly was saying my goodbyes.” 

As he was swept through the pipe his mind raced as he prepared for the worst – and considered the irony of dying on that particular night. 

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“First was that my kids weren’t gonna have a father and that my wife wasn’t gonna have her husband,” he told WBRC. “My dad’s funeral was the next day. I’m literally gonna die the day before his funeral.”

He was able to stop himself after plunging out of the other end of the pipe, according to reports.

Owen grabbed a slender tree branch that he credits for saving his life after the harrowing 45 second ride.

“I came out, and the water was still flowing. But I was able to grab a tree branch. It wasn’t a very big tree branch, and I’m a big guy, so I don’t know how it didn’t snap,” he told WBRC.

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“It’s a God thing,” he added.

Owen’s shoes and shirt were thrown off as he tumbled through the pipe, and his wedding wing sustained some damage.

He came out with scratches and bruises on his arm, and along his side and leg, according to WBRC. 

But Owen is just grateful that it wasn’t one of his three sons, or one of the neighborhood kids that had been swept away.

“What if they would have chased that ball and tried to get it,” he asked WBRC.

“They would’ve most likely drowned.”