Doctor canoes through Texas floodwaters to perform surgery

HOUSTON, Texas -- A Houston doctor braved the Hurricane Harvey floodwaters in a canoe to make his way to the hospital so he could perform surgery on a teen suffering from a painful, and potentially permanent, condition.

Dr. Stephen Kimmel's own home in Dickinson was beginning to flood on Saturday when he received word that a 16-year-old boy needed immediate surgery at Clear Lake Regional Medical Center. Kimmel hopped in his car and began making his way to the hospital but was stopped by rising waters. Two volunteer firefighters with a canoe came to his aid and the three paddled towards the hospital in the dark against heavy currents.

Kimmel walked the last leg of the journey, almost a mile, through waist-deep water to make it to the hospital.

"Sometimes you have to do whatever it takes," Kimmel said in a press release. "This young man's life would have been changed for the worse forever if we hadn't been able to perform surgery when we did. In the end, it all turned out very well."