PEORIA, Ill. — An Illinois man drove his car into a flash flood in an area of Peoria.
He tells WMBDs’ Matt Sheehan he was stuck in his car for nearly half an hour before being rescued by firefighters.
First responders used a rescue tool to get the man out of his car and walked him to safety.
But that’s not where the story ends; a woman brought her lifted Jeep Wrangler to push the mans’ car out of the flood waters.
“Honestly I just saw the car was stuck and was like ‘well, I’ll go help them, I got a Jeep!” said nursing student Ruby Hupp.
So Ruby trudged through the flash flood, turning into the intersection and getting behind Jeff Davids’ car.
“Alright here we go here we go! This is how they’re getting out this car,” WMBDs’ Zach Hatcher said on a Facebook live.
With Jeffs’ car already in neutral, all Ruby had to do was push, getting the car out of the flood water and onto dry land.
“Well, I mean the water was only up to here on him and I’ve got a 4 inch lift kit on this,” Rupp said.
Jeff had been stuck in his car for half an hour before first responders got him out, he says he was on his way home from work when he drove into the deep water.
“I saw other cars making it through, so I thought I could too, so when I realized it was probably too risky, I decided to try and turn to get to higher ground, and the car just stalled,” David said.
He says he wishes he had taken another route.
“I should’ve turned around and tried to go home another way,” David added.
Ruby and Jeff met after the water rescue where Jeff was able to thank her for getting his car out of harms’ way.
Crazy thing is, this was the second car Ruby pushed out!
And she was ready to help more.
“Any more cars stuck?” Ruby said laughing.
This shows the importance of the expression, ‘Turn around, don’t drown.’
Jeff said it didn’t seem too deep so he tried his luck, and as he found out, the water was deeper than he thought and he got swept away.
Luckily, he’s safe, just a little shaken up.
And thanks to Ruby Hupp, his car made it to dry ground.
