WYOMING COUNTY, Pa. — "So the car ended up like all the way down there. Like you could see it was, it was literally stopped like there was a tree behind it, but it was actually just stopped by like the uh corn stalks," said Cora Rivera.
Her drive home through Nicholson Township Friday night was almost her last after her car was swept off this stretch of Route 1029 and began to fill with water from the nearby overflowing Tunkhannock Creek.
"It was kind of like going straight, and then it just went backward like it was just backtracking the whole way," said Rivera. "I was gonna call my parents, then I was like, no, I need to call 911. So I did."
"You don't wanna sound stressed on the phone while they're equally as stressed out. You wanna keep a nice calm demeanor, said Wyoming County 911 dispatcher Lloyd Burton.
He was quick to answer Rivera's call for help. While keeping her calm, Burton alerted members of the Nicholson Fire Department and Tunkhannock Ambulance and Dive Rescue Team.
"It was standing in the cornfield there; we were standing on top of the truck, had visual sight of her, and then we lost sight of her," said Chief Ted Roberts of the Nicholson Fire Department.
"The rescue itself is really crazy. Kind of a once-in-a-lifetime rescue," said Capt. Mike Markovitz Jr. of the Tunkhannock Ambulance Dive Rescue Team.
"So we had to on the fly kind of come up with a new plan as to how we're gonna find or where we're gonna go," said Chief Mike Markovitz Sr. of Tunkhannock Ambulance.
With the water rising, Burton stayed on the phone with Rivera as rescue crews found her car and, with just minutes to spare, pulled her to safety.
Something she's forever grateful for.
"Very thankful that they were able to like come get me and everybody was willing to like risk, you know, kind of their lives come out and get me," said Rivera.
And for the first responders, this is the exact situation they train for.
"Any of us that are volunteers would do it every day of the week," said Roberts.
"You take your confidence in your training, confidence in the equipment that you have, and hopefully put it all together to make a great outcome like this," said Markovitz Sr.