A Houston, Texas, man narrowly escaped with his life after surviving a severe storm thanks to a Good Samaritan.
Jeff Jones was driving home in his pick-up truck on Tuesday when strong rain and winds poured over the city, damaging homes, toppling trees, and flooding the streets.
While trying to make it back to his family, Jones “misjudged” a submerged railing while navigating through the watery road near Interstate 45, FOX 26 Houston reported.
The floodwaters first swept Jones’s truck into a pedestrian bridge, then his roof collapsed, and his vehicle drifted into a drainage ditch.
“About 30 to 45 seconds my truck… I heard the roof crumbling and my truck sank down in the water, and it shot me out of the bridge,” Jones recounted to the outlet.
“I knew I didn’t want to get out of my truck because the water would wash me away faster than the truck,” he said.
During that chaotic moment, the Houston man said he thought about his wife and family.
“I thought the truck was going to spin over… all I’m thinking is what I’m leaving behind in this world,” he shared.
Jones dialed 911, but, unfortunately, he could not tell the operator his exact location after being washed off of the road.
His truck then began to lift up, sitting at a dangerous 45-degree angle.
“The scariest part was when it started to lift, and I had to think of exit plans,” Jones recalled.
“You could see the guy hitting the windshield and the water was high. It had to been chest deep,” onlooker Renee Young told the local station.
That was when a witness intervened and saved his life.
That guy was Robert Chance.
“The truck was starting to lift. The water was actually coming into the bed of the truck. I started in the front of the truck because the water was coming in the back so much that … the front was the driest part at the time,” Chance said.
Jones was able to escape the sinking truck thanks to Chance and is grateful to be alive.
“I got a little scar from my hand here from the glass and some bruising here from when I was trying to get people’s attention on the window,” Jones said. “The rest of the scars are inside, and that’s going to take a while to heal.”
Now, he is warning others to “turn around and don’t drown” when there are flood alerts.