It was an emotional reunion, Thursday, between a California woman and the first responders who saved her life following a DUI crash earlier this month.
Fighting back tears, 23-year-old Meggan Russell embraced the police officers and firefighters who rescued her after an alleged drunk driver caused the car she was in to flip into a canal – then left her trapped inside the car as it filled with water.
“How do you even put into words, ‘Thank you for literally saving my life,’” Russell told the men during the meeting in Sutter County, CA. Thursday.
The accident occurred in the early morning hours of May 20 as police responded to a call of an overturned vehicle on Clements Road near the town of Franklin, CA.
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When officers arrived on scene they spoke with the driver of the vehicle, 27-year-old Travis Stanton, who told them he had been going for a late night swim.
According to police, Travis twice told officers he had been driving alone – right as Russell found herself trapped inside the overturned sedan that was rapidly filling with water.
“I started freaking out, I punched the window,” Russell told CBS News.
“And then I kept just banging on the trunk, but the water was just too much and I yelled one more time and I hit it just a few more times and when the water was all the way full, that’s when I just went unconscious.”
Incredibly, one of the responding officers managed to hear her muffled cries for help.
“I could hear someone breathing,” California Highway Patrol Officer Steven Klippel said. “For me to hear those breaths, to know that someone was in the car and to be able to react that fast, it was a huge, huge thing that made it a different outcome than possibly what could’ve been.”
Klippel was soon followed into the water by Sutter County Fire Battalion Chief Richard Epperson.
When they finally got to Meggan, she was in dire condition: trapped underwater for several minutes, her lungs had filled with water and her body had begun to shut down.
“We figured it was about a minute and a half to three minutes before we got her out of the water,” Epperson said, “She was not breathing and there was no pulse.”
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Russell was given CPR by the responding officers, who managed to keep her alive until the ambulance arrived.
Incredibly, she made a full recovery after six days in the intensive care unit. On Thursday, she got the chance to thank the men who saved her life.
Stanton, meanwhile, was arrested and charged with felony DUI and leaving the scene of an accident. Police say more charges could be pending. He’s been booked into the Sutter County Jail on a $150,000 bond.
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