Quick-thinking daughter, 10, saves dad’s life after bloody mishap in raging river: ‘I was helpless and hopeless’

A heroic daughter saved her badly bleeding and paralyzed father’s life the very moment he thought he was going to die after a freak diving accident into a treacherous Louisiana river, police said.

The father-daughter duo went to the Bogue Chitto River to kayak and look at softshell turtle eggs near the town of Bogalusa on June 18 when Michael Painter, 46, nearly lost his life, he told The Post.

“I’ll tell you what, bruh,” Painter said. “She saved my life, if she wouldn’t have did what she did, I wouldn’t be here right now,” the father said of his 10-year-old kid in a Wednesday night interview.

Painter, an offshore oil worker, explained that his daughter, Carson, loves to visit a spot on the river where softshell turtles lay their eggs. She had just convinced him to buy her a kayak, so they paddled there together. 

It’s also a fun place to do front flips off the bluff, Painter said. 

“Well, I being the 46-year-old trying to be the cool daddy, I said, ‘Watch this!’ I took off down the hill and I’m fixing to do a front flip,” he said.

At the last second, he said, he lost his footing and drove his head straight into a pile of big, jagged rocks lying along the bottom of the river. 

Initially, Painter thought he was swimming to the surface, as the water was only a few feet above his head. He was confused. 

“I can see the surface of the water, and it’s not even a foot away, but I’ll tell you, it might as well had been 100 miles away, man, and I’m drifting down the river. I can feel my heels dragging along the bottom.” 

That’s when he realized he was paralyzed. Painter had broken a vertebra and bruised his spine.

 “I was helpless and hopeless,” he added.

The whole time the dad thought he was swimming, his arms were just dangling uselessly by his side, he recalled.

“I can see the blood in the water all around me, man, but that’s the least of my worries. I’m thinking I’m paralyzed.”

At first, Carson thought her dad was pretending — but then she saw the blood. She raced to the river, tripped and fell. She collected herself and sprinted toward her dad. 

“I can’t hold my breath anymore. I’m fixing to die. This is it, you know, bruh,” Painter said, recounting his feeling of despair.

“I’m preparing for it. And it’s going to hurt.”

At the moment when he was about to surrender to his fate, he felt his daughter’s hand.

“She grabbed my hand, bro,” Painter said. “That was the biggest relief in my life, man.”

Carson positioned her dad’s limp head so that he could breathe as the 70-pound kid dragged her 6-foot, 200-pound dad to the sandbar.

“She dragged me as far as she could drag me,” he said.

Painter said Carson was crying and “squalling” so he calmed her down.

“I’m OK,” he reassured her. “But I need you to do something,” he recalled telling her.

He gave her explicit instructions to paddle toward the car, grab his keys from his hat along the river and get his cellphone from the car to find service and call for help.

“Man, it was just hard to let my little girl go down that river by herself, you know what I’m saying? I’m risking her life to save mine,” Painter said. “She was scared to death. It’s dangerous for a kid by herself.”

As long as he could hear the sound of her paddling, he knew she was OK. But worry set in once she was out of earshot.

Moments later, a wicked thunderstorm broke out, with lightning streaking the sky. 

“It’s the damndest flood you’ve ever seen,” Painter said. “My head sticking out the water, sand slapping my face, hitting my eyes.”

An hour later, just as he was about to give up hope again, he heard the sound of a boat motor. 

Carson had made it to the car and called 911 — and all of Painter’s friends. They formed an informal rescue armada and made a beeline for him.

Paramedics arrived and put his neck in a brace, and his heart flooded with relief when he saw Carson appear before him.

“Lord ,have mercy, man, it felt like an eternity since I had last seen her face,” he said. 

Painter, who has regained his ability to move, said the doctors told him he came as close to becoming permanently paralyzed as you could. He needs to do physical therapy to help with his recovery. 

This Saturday, the sheriff’s office is holding a special ceremony for Carson at the local courthouse. She is receiving a citation for bravery.

“For her to feel special about what she did, it warms her heart,” Painter said. “It brings me to tears to see how she lights up. She did a grown person job, man.”