I walk out into the water, the rush of it against my own legs fierce and unyielding as it tries to knock me over. I pump my arms as I run to the car, and I trip as I get close. I get shoved hard by the roiling water, smashing my arm between my body and the car, but I don’t stop. I can’t.
“Give me the kids!” I call out. I make a come-hither motion with my hands, and she looks down at me skeptically. “I can do it!” I yell. “But you have to hurry! The water’s still rising.” It’s battering my shoulders now, and I can feel splashes in the back of my hair. She squats down, bracing herself against the pull of the water. She hands me the larger boy, who wraps himself around me. I try to take the baby too, but the car moves under her, propelled by the force of the water, and she nearly falls. I hold the boy to my front, letting him wrap his legs and arms around me.
“Hold on tight. As tight as you can,” I warn. He grips me like one of those spider monkeys you see on nature shows as they cling to their mothers even when dashing unheeded through the treetops. I turn around and call out to the mom over my shoulder, “Give me the baby!” The car shifts again, and I can see the railing bend, the only thing that’s keeping the car from rushing right over the side of the bridge. “Now!” I yell.
She leans down, passes the infant to me as I still hold her older child with the other hand. The I turn and yell, “Hop on! Hurry!” She jumps, grabbing my neck as she holds on to me, and I feel her legs wrap around my waist. I hold tightly to the children, as her boy holds on to my front, and I jump against the force of the water, trying to get back to the shore. I see headlights up ahead and blue lights right behind. Thank God.
I walk with her to the part of the road that’s out of the water, and I turn my body so that the boy slides free and she drops gently onto the concrete roadway. I lower the baby into her waiting arms.
“Are you okay, ma’am?” I yell against the noise of the water.
“We’re fine now,” she says, tears streaming down her face. I turn and watch as the rail on the bridge finally gives way and her car teeters on the edge. “But the other one—” She extends a finger to point toward the bridge just beyond her car and I see the taillight of a car that’s completely submerged as it blinks twice and then goes dark.
“Is someone in there?”
She nods. “A woman!” She now has both her children clinging to her. She’s shaking and shivering, her teeth chattering as she looks beyond me toward the car.
The lights on the car are out, and the rescue team hasn’t gotten out of their vehicle yet, so I start toward the car. I half jump and half swim to the submerged car, and I realize that I can’t open the doors of the car against the rush of the water. A woman is slumped in the seat, as the car has already filled with water. I hold on to the car as I make my way around to the other side, using the remaining submerged rail as my guide. I can’t open the door on the other side, either, because there’s no clearance. I climb on top of the car and see that she has a sunroof, so I look around frantically for something, anything, and grab a nearby log as it floats by, lift it, and slam it down against the sunroof as hard as I can.
It takes three nerve-wracking tries before the sunroof shatters, and I kick away the remaining glass from my perch on top of the car, reach inside, and try to pull the woman out by grabbing under her armpits.
She budges only slightly. I tug again, and the constant resistance makes me realize her seat belt is still fastened. Taking a deep breath, I duck inside through the broken sunroof and fumble around until I find the release and depress it. The belt floats in the water and I try again to get underneath her armpits to pull her out.
I groan as I lift her, because she’s unconscious—hopefully