A little boy cried ‘Jesus, save me’ moments before he was swept to death by Hurricane Helene floods in North Carolina.
Micah Drye, 7, made the haunting plea as waters rose around he and his grandparents in Asheville on Friday. They were also drowned.
The surging brown torrent forced Micah, his mom Megan Drye and her parents onto the roof of their home for safety, Fox Weather reported.
But it destroyed the house soon after, with stricken Megan saying her late son ‘caled out to the one God almighty’ as he was carried away by the inundation.
She told the outlet: ‘He reached for something past flesh, past human, past anything that even grown adults, I think, would reach for.
‘My son called out to the one God Almighty.’
Sharing her belief that Micah was taken to heaven, she said: ‘And I think at that moment he was rescued, and he became my hero, and I think all of them carried me through that moment.’
All four of them stranded on the roof were pulled into the muddy waters, with Micah being separated from his mom.
Megan spent three hours tied up in roots and sections of trees that had been crumpled under the water, holding on for dear life.
While she clung on to the vegetation, she told the outlet that something greater told her to let go.
She added: ‘In the midst of the chaos, all I heard was God telling me to be still and to stop fighting the water.
‘That was him, that was prayers. That was prayers that told me to be still and to let the water carry me to where I needed to be rescued.
‘When I did let go, I heard the voice say, “You still don’t fight the water” and then I ended up in between the two carriers that stuck with me the whole time.’
Megan was spotted by a man and then attended to by a rescue team. Her son’s body was recovered a quarter-mile, away with her parents also passing away.
She added: ‘My grief today is unfathomable. I’m sorrowful. I feel broken. But what is the main thing that I take away from grief is the uplifting of all the prayers that I have received.’
A GoFundMe page has since been launched to help Megan, which has already raised over $133,000.
Asheville suffered some of the worst devastation inflicted by Helene which has killed at least 177 people across 6 states.
Government cargo planes have started bringing food and water to the hardest-hit areas.
The Pentagon said on Wednesday that the secretary of defense has authorized mobilizing 1,000 active-duty soldiers to help with supplies.
It may be weeks, though, before water is fully restored in Asheville, which supplies almost all of Buncombe County’s 275,000 residents.
Thousands of feet of pipe from one reservoir were washed out and will have to be rebuilt, and a second intake is not working, said water system spokesperson Clay Chandler.
As crews reached remote areas, more destruction came into view. Homes teetered on hillsides and riverbanks that had been washed away.