WMBFNews.com | Myrtle Beach/Florence, SC | News, Weather, SportsWoman, grandson rescued from flooded car

Woman, grandson rescued from flooded car

By Susan-Elizabeth Littlefield - bio | email

LUGOFF, SC (WIS) - A woman and her grandson were stuck on top of their flooded car for nearly two hours Tuesday until they were rescued.

Elise Spigner said she and her grandson Edward were driving near Lugoff Tuesday morning when they got lost. After driving around for a while, Spigner saw a sign for I-77. The sign shouldn't have been there at all, but Spigner didn't know that.

"That sign really, really led me in the wrong direction," said Spigner.

She took a wrong turn onto a dirt road that was flooded, and the car got stuck.

"Since I had already been through some water, I thought I could get through it, it didn't look any deeper, thought I could get through it," said Spigner.

But she couldn't. They were in a desolate hunting camp, and Columbia Fire Department officials said there was about three feet of water on the road.

"So I got the baby out, immediately we got on the roof of the car," recalled Spigner. "I didn't know if there were going to be alligators coming out of the water. I wanted to make sure we were as high as we could get, so they wouldn't grab my feet or the baby."

Spigner called 9-1-1, and after two hours of searching, rescuers finally found the pair and walked them to safety.

"I got in, held onto their arms because water came up to here," she said. "I lost my flip-flops.  They said, 'you're gonna be walking on stones.' I said, 'I've given birth six times, this doesn't hurt a bit.'"

The car probably won't be so lucky.

"I'm sure it's gonna be totaled because water got in the transmission, I'm sure," said Spigner.

But Spigner says not to feel sorry for her, because she certainly doesn't.

"No, that can be replaced," she said about the car. "My grandson cannot, and I cannot."

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