Defying police orders, a South Carolina pastor waded through dirty foul-smelling floodwater in Ridgeville, South Carolina, on Monday to retrieve a floating casket that was swept from a flooded cemetery.

Wayne Reeves saw the casket floating away from the cemetery of New Canaan Methodist Church in Ridgeville, a sister church of his New Life Ministries church in nearby Summerville, according to NBC News.

"I waited all day, and nobody did anything, so I decided, out of respect for this family, I would do whatever's necessary," Reeves said.

The casket was forced up out to the ground because of the floods. Reeves could not wait any longer and pushed the casket to dry ground.

A sheriff's deputy in Dorchester County told him not to do it as it was dangerous.

"This is America, and we're not like that," the pastor said.

"You've got all these family members standing out here, and there's moms and dads and aunts and uncles out there in the water," he said. "If that was my mama or my dad, I'd walk through hell and high water, and today it happened to be high water."

He knew that the waters could be infected with bacteria but did it anyway.

"I'm going to go home and take a hot bath and wash with a little bleach. It'll take care of that, but this family's already hurt enough, and I don't want them to hurt anymore," he said.

As of Wednesday, 17 people have died in the floods.

"This is not over — just because the rain stops doesn't mean we are out of the woods," South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said Monday. "Even though you're not seeing rain, there is still water out there."

Authorities registered records of almost 25 inches of rain in Kingstree, 24 inches in the town of Longs in Horry County and 21 inches in Georgetown.