Local heroes save elderly woman from sinking car during flash flood

McKENZIE, Tenn. — Cell phone video shows the scary moment this car became submerged with an elderly woman inside.

“She thought this was a parking lot so I imagine she drove this way and when she did she drove off into this ditch right here,” Juan Martinez said.

Juan Martinez works at a nearby Mexican restaurant and noticed something strange during the down pour.

“Every time it rains it floods so we were just looking at all of the big trucks going through here and the next thing you know I happened to look and and I saw this white car with its nose just sticking out of the water. I was sitting there looking and I just couldn’t believe it,” Martinez said.

“Well, the car was submerged all the way up to the front passenger door with the nose like this, so the bottom of it and the top half was still sticking up out of the water,” Martinez said.

Martinez said it did not take him long for his fascination to turn into alarm.

“I saw the handicap sticker in the front view mirror so there are some elderly people in there. My first reaction was I want to go out there and see what’s going on and help them get out,” Martinez said.

Martinez said without a second thought he was off.

“I took my work shirt off and everything of value and I took off running from the restaurant and I jumped this way and got in the water,” Martinez described.

He said someone from another near by store jumped in as well to help the driver who says was a woman in her 60’s.

“She was all tore up and was wanting to know if we could get her out and I said yes ma’am we are going to try to get you out,”  Martinez said.

Even now his mind is still on the woman he helped save.

“I may have done a heroic thing, but I don’t want to take credit for that because I was more worried about the safety of the elderly lady,” Martinez said.

Martinez said the lady was taken to a local hospital but does not believe she was seriously injured.