A man in Japan was trapped in his car underwater and sure he would die, then a scene from Detective Conan flashed through his mind

A man in Japan said he escaped his car after it plunged into a river by remembering a scene from the anime Detective Conan. “For the first 20 seconds or so, I really thought I was going to die,” he wrote on X. “But then this scene suddenly flashed through my mind, and I managed to escape alive. I can’t thank the creator of Conan enough!”

He said the crash happened as he tried to pass another driver who had been reversing near a cemetery, as reported by Dexerto. That driver suddenly pulled forward, and the collision left his car in the water.

The scene he remembered comes from episode 1078, “The Black Organization’s Scheme (Landing),” which originally aired in 2023. In the episode, FBI agent Andre Camel ends up underwater after his car goes into the ocean, and Conan tells him to breathe from an air pocket near the roof until the pressure inside and outside the car equalizes so he can open the door.

The scene came back to him underwater

The driver said he recalled those details while his own car was submerged and searched for the door handle. “I pulled on it, and the wall to my right moved a little. I realized it was the door, so I pushed it open with all my strength,” he said. “It was a little heavy, but it opened relatively easily.”

He said he never even saw the other driver involved in the collision. A nearby resident helped him climb onto the riverbank, and police and emergency services later arrived at the scene.

His car was reportedly written off. In a follow-up post, he said his jacket had floated away in the river. He had expected someone to recover it, and he said losing it bothered him nearly as much as losing the car.

Detective Conan, created by Gosho Aoyama, has run as a manga since 1994 and as an anime since 1996, according to its Wikipedia entry. The series follows a teenage detective who is turned into a child after being poisoned by a criminal group known as the Black Organization.

AAA warns against the method shown in the episode. Its guidance on sinking vehicles calls waiting for a car to fill with water so the pressure equalizes “deadly advice,” since the pressure doesn’t equalize instantly even once the car is fully underwater.

AAA instead tells drivers to stay calm, unbuckle, lower or break a side window, and get out as quickly as possible. It also advises against opening a door, which lets water rush in and can make the car sink faster. Waiting for a vehicle to fill with water is dangerous because the pressure may not equalize right away, and earlier this year, three teens in France were unable to open their doors after their car flipped into a pool.