A risky drive after an overnight shift in Georgia ends in chest-deep water on a stranger's back
Angelina Madut knew driving home from her overnight shift at a suburban Atlanta bakery was a risk.
The warnings about Helene’s potential to flood neighborhoods and topple trees had been in play for hours. But like anyone who couldn’t take the financial hit of missing a day of work because of the storm, Madut got in her car.
She had to get home from work.
At the same time early Friday, a news crew had set up in the city’s Buckhead neighborhood – not far from Peachtree Creek – to report on whatever damage Helene had in store.
As Madut navigated before dawn into the city – and onto that same street – she didn’t realize how much water was in front of her on the road.
Soon, her car lost traction.
And then, it started to float.
Madut noticed the nearby journalists, including former HLN meteorologist Bob Van Dillen.
And Van Dillen spotted her.
That’s when the veteran newsman jumped into action.
He rushed into a flood as deep as his chest and pulled Madut from her white sedan – and onto his own back.
Then, with Madut’s hands clasped around his chest, Van Dillen began trudging up Sagamore Drive, Madut leaning off his left side, her soaked black and white shirt and jeans emerging slowly at the surface with each step, video from Fox Weather shows.
“She was cold. I gave her my shirt,” Van Dillen told his colleagues, according to the video. “Her husband’s gonna pick her up, and the fire truck came. They’re good. Everyone’s good.”
After daybreak, Madut’s car still sat in the brown flood, only its roof and the top inches of its windows visible.
As far as she’s concerned, a shaken Madut told CNN, Van Dillen saved her life.
Later, after her husband arrived, Van Dillen advised him not to drive toward the overtopped creek, to go another way instead.
As for Madut, her hero offered this: “You can keep the shirt,” he said of the bright red top. “Keep it. It’s all yours.
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