Good Samaritan Saves Woman From Flipped Car In Icy Pond
WINDSOR, Colo. (CBS4) - A stranger pulled a frantic driver to safety after a car crashed and flipped over in an icy pond Thursday in Windsor.
Kimberly Garcia said the Good Samaritan saved her life. She was just leaving work when her car started to slide off the road.
"The car just flipped into the water," she said.
The car broke through the ice. The back window shattered and the frigid water began filling the car.
"It just started coming into the window really bad -- ice and everything -- I had to try and find one way of getting out," Garcia said.
The ice surrounding the car meant she couldn't push the front doors open wide enough to escape. Panic began to set in.
"I went to the back and tried opening the back. I couldn't. I had no strength anymore. I was totally giving up."
Garcia was able to climb halfway out of the broken back window when someone just so happened to catch a glimpse of the upside-down car.
"I was telling him, 'I'm giving up,' and he was like, 'No, I got you.' I couldn't even get up on the side of the road or anything."
He was able to help her up the embankment and into his warm car.
"Your body is just not designed to be in water that cold," Todd Vess with the Windsor-Severence Fire Department said.
Vess says hypothermia can set in within minutes, and someone can die within just 15 minutes of being exposed to such harsh conditions.
Garcia says she will forever be grateful for the stranger that stopped to help her.
"To be honest with you, he saved my life, because I don't think i would have made it."
CBS4 reached out to the man who helped pull Garcia to safety, but he declined an interview request.
Garcia was taken to the hospital and was released just a few hours later. She said she is sore and bruised and has some cuts on her hands from the glass.
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