Jeeps can go plenty of places when the road runs out but the ocean isn’t one of them. One Canadian tourist found that out the hard way after driving a Jeep off of a Hawaiian cliff and into the ocean. Thankfully, they survived to tell the tale after the ocean current swept them out to sea and then back to the shore.
The driver went over a road on the Big Island around 3:30 a.m. and spear fishermen camping nearby called in the accident to authorities. By the time rescue workers arrived on scene the Jeep was some 100 yards off shore. At that point, it was only through collaboration between different departments and the driver that a rescue occurred.
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Firefighters instructed the man on where to swim once he was out of his vehicle. Then, a rescue helicopter from the Coast Guard was able to lower a rope that the man used to reach safety. From there, the workers took the unnamed 27-year-old man to the hospital for minor cuts and mild hypothermia.
“My dive partner was up for the whole thing. He got woken up by the fisherman that the driver almost hit. It was a young guy down there, maybe 18 years old,” Mike Moody said to Island News, “I don’t know who he was, but he said that the car had gone off the cliff just to the right of him.”
According to ABC News, police believe the driver simply took a wrong turn, ended up on a dirt path, and then things went downhill both literally and figuratively. According to reports, the Jeep he was driving was a rental. We just hope they purchased the rental insurance.