An elderly woman and her husband were rescued on Monday after the couple’s vehicle was forced off of a highway by a flash flood in southern Nevada, trapping the pair as another car caught in the rushing water raced toward them.
Amateur photographer Doug Bennett captured the frightening scene as it unfolded along Highway 95, which is roughly 30 miles north of Las Vegas.
Bennett was shooting video of a Ford Crown Victoria that got stuck in the mud while crossing the highway’s median when the vehicle was suddenly swept away by rising floodwaters.
“Get those people out,” a man can be heard saying on the video, as the car was pushed toward a Toyota Prius by the fast-moving waters.
A group of airmen from Creech Air Force Base rushed into action once they saw the Crown Victoria pick up speed, the video showed.
The airmen managed to rescue the elderly woman from the backseat of the car after pulling her husband to safety, Las Vegas television station KTNV reported.
One of the rescuers then had to be rescued himself after he got pushed down into the rushing water.
As soon as he was rescued, the video showed the Prius and Crown Victoria both moving swiftly down the flooded roadway.
Incredibly, no one was injured, the station reported.
The airmen told KTNV that they had been stopped along the highway for about five minutes when the flooding accelerated.
As soon as they realized that an elderly couple was trapped inside the Prius, they sprang into action, racing to save them from the rushing water, according to the station.
Two of the men carried the 81-year-old woman through the water, which was waist-deep, the station reported.
Despite the rescue efforts, the men didn’t think of themselves as heroes.
“I don’t think hero. I feel most people would do the same thing,” Airman Christopher Jones told KTNV.
The woman, who was from Arizona, told the station she was just happy she and her husband made it out alive.
