Yianni Sarris was in his parents’ backyard when a car went into the pond behind the house. What he did next changed multiple lives forever.
MENTOR, Ohio — It was supposed to be an ordinary Friday night.
Yianni Sarris, 33, was at his parents’ home in Mentor, Ohio, helping his dad cut down some dead trees in the backyard. His mom had just left to pick up pizza; his dad had gone to the garage to grab a battery for the saw.
For a few minutes, Yianni was alone — one last swing at a tree before the Cavaliers game started. Then, he heard a boom.
“I heard a big boom, which I thought at the time was possibly a garbage truck,” Sarris said. “I looked up — and the SUV was coming up, came down, came across one, two, three, four yards. Then the right two wheels went down the hill over there and just kept driving, basically, into the center of the pond.”
Just before that moment, Kim Wallace, 46, was heading home from Olive Garden with her 8-year-old daughter, Olivia. It was just the two of them — her husband Chris was out of town, and her older daughter Gabby, 10, was at a sleepover. A quiet Friday night that was about to change everything.
On the way home, something went wrong.
“We were coming home and I started to feel really, like, nauseous — kind of, like, sick, like starting to feel just not right,” Kim said on Mentor police body camera footage captured that night. “And yeah, next thing I know, her son was literally waking me up from the car.”
Kim passed out behind the wheel. Her car went through a fence, through signs, across the yard behind the Sarris family home and into the pond.
Ring camera footage captured what happened next: the splash, and then Yianni — no hesitation, no pause — sprinting toward the water.
“When you hear a big boom like that and you hear a little girl screaming — it felt like it was 30 seconds, but really it was probably three seconds — you go right into reaction mode,” he said. “‘Just jump in. There’s lives in the water. You’ve got to do what’s right.'”
But Yianni is clear about something: The first hero that night was 8 years old.
“People are calling me the hero; if the daughter did not open up that door instantly once the car started driving to the center of the pond, there was nothing I could do even if I got out there,” he said.
Olivia had unbuckled herself, pushed the door open, and started swimming — and screaming for her mom.
Yianni got Olivia to shore with a final push toward a neighbor, Walter, who had come running from three houses down. Then he turned back toward the pond.
“I looked at her straight in the eyes and I just said, ‘I’m going to try and I’m going to do my best,'” Sarris said.
When Yianni reached Kim’s car, the water was past his chest; the front door was submerged. He went in through the back.
“I actually had to go in through the back door, where mom was still unconscious or had not reacted yet, and knew I had to act instantly,” he said. “I reached over, unbuckled her seatbelt, and began to pull her from underneath her arms through the back — through the center of the console, through the back of the car — and that’s when she started waking up.”
He swam Kim to safety, and then his body gave out everything it had left.
“Everything kind of just went black,” he said.
The entire rescue took about 3 1/2 minutes; Yianni said it felt like 15.
Police responded to the scene. Neighbors came with blankets, a girl in a prom dress stopped to help, the community showed up — the same community Yianni has always loved.
“The community’s full of families and young ones,” he said. “There’s about 15 little kids in this cul-de-sac right here, and every time I pull down the driveway, they’re all together playing.”
It’s a neighborhood where his sister lives across the street — his godson, his niece. A place where showing up for each other isn’t a question.
“I’ve luckily been raised by a great mother and father,” Sarris said. “I’ve had incredible mentors that just always taught me to do the right thing, and that was the right thing.”
Weeks later, the two families met at a nearby park — including Yianni’s parents, who were present the night of the rescue. For Kim, there were no words big enough.
“We just can’t thank you enough,” she told Yianni. “I am so grateful that you were there. I don’t think I got a chance to really express that to you. We were all in shock.”
She thought about the moment she saw Yianni on the ground after the rescue — completely spent, gasping.
“People are very quick to bust out their phone, film, and he didn’t even do that,” Kim said. “I am just grateful, grateful, grateful.”
Chris Wallace had one thing to say when he finally stood in front of Yianni.
“Our family is still here today because of you,” he said, “because I don’t know what it would have been.”
Gabby, who learned about the accident from her sleepover, said simply, “I’m grateful that he saved our family.”
And then there was Olivia — the little girl Yianni called the real hero.
“Thank you just for saving me and my mom,” she told him.
“Do it again every time,” he said.
The two families laughed, they hugged, and Chris turned to Yianni’s parents.
“You raised him well,” he told them.
Yianni’s dad — who had come out of the garage that night to find his son already in the water, and watched him go under, not knowing if he’d come back up — had four words at the reunion.
“Very proud. Very proud.”
Yianni Sarris will tell you he was just in the right place at the right time, that none of it was his doing.
“I’m just grateful God put me there in the right place, right time, and I was able to react quick,” he said. “I was there at the right time.”
We’re happy to report Kim is feeling much better and working with her doctors to find out what caused her to pass out behind the wheel.
As for the two families who were strangers on May 1? They “feel like we’re going to be friends forever.”