Swept Away: Boys Narrowly Escape Flash Flood

Cyrus Damo and Timothy Phillip are lucky to be alive after they were caught up in flash flood waters in a canal near their Hawaii home. KHNL's Allyson Blair reports.

(KHNL/NBC News) — Two 10-year-old boys swept up in raging flash flood waters in a canal near their Waipahu, Hawaii homes Monday are both lucky to be alive.

Cyrus Damo says he was playing along an area of the canal that runs behind Oasis Town homes when he lost his slipper down the embankment.

In a matter of seconds, he says, the water went from being just a few inches deep to up to his chest.

“My friend Timothy, he tried to come help me and dropped his skateboard down,” Damo said.

Timothy Phillip says when tried to grab his skateboard he got swept up in the current.

“I tried getting it, and the water was too hard,” he said. “And it pushed me down and my friend came with me.”

Both boys were swept roughly 100 yards down the canal. The two lost sight of each other as the canal turned into a pair of tunnels that pass under a highway.

“The little concrete wall was in the middle of the two pipes,” said Damo. “I was getting washed in the first one and he was getting washed in the second one.”

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