A state trooper, police sergeant, and a couple are being praised for saving a woman who found herself stranded in her truck during a flood in Columbia, Connecticut.
The incident happened Friday once floodwaters from Tropical Storm Elsa gushed onto Parker Bridge Road near the Coventry town line, the Hartford Courant reported.
The two good Samaritans named Michael and Stephanie Einsiendel had been driving their Humvee in the area when two state troopers arrived at the scene following a 911 call regarding a stranded woman.
The troopers hopped aboard the Humvee and went to find the woman in desperate need of help.
“You could only see just the very top of the vehicle and one of the state troopers he jumped right in and swam over to the woman,” Stephanie told NBC Connecticut.
Video footage showed the woman pinned against her truck’s door and an officer nearby in chest-deep water.
“They didn’t hesitate at all. Fully clothed, just jumped right in there,” Stephanie said of the rescuers.
State police said the woman drove into the water-logged road just before 6:00 p.m. and several fire departments responded to the scene.
“I positioned the Hummer in front of the car so that it would block, kind of, some of the current,” Michael noted.
Reporter Dominique Moody shared a clip of the moment the rescuers began pulling the woman to safety with a rope:
The responders involved “heroically went into the high-flowing water and were able to secure a rope and save the operator by guiding the operator to dry ground,” state police noted Saturday, adding, “No injuries were sustained during this incident.”
The couple said they were glad they were there and had the ability to help.
“I’m just glad that she was by herself and there weren’t two kids in the vehicle because it would’ve been a whole different story,” Michael concluded.
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