A woman is extremely lucky to be alive after her car drove off a rock wall of a car park into a harbour and immediately began sinking at a frightening speed.
The petrified woman was squashed up against the rear window as the front end of the BMW was rapidly submerging into the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland at 3pm on Tuesday.
Fortunately witnesses called emergency services as quick-thinking policemen arrived and sprung straight into action by jumping into the water.
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The petrified woman was squashed up against the rear window as the front end of the car was rapdily submerging into the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland at 3pm on Tuesday
Officers Paul Watts (left) and Simon Russell (right) then dragged the 63-year-old woman from the car to safety
The officers and a bystander couldn't open the doors so one officer attempted to smash the window with a baton with no luck.
Once it became clear that it was not going to penetrate through the glass another officer was handed a rock and managed to shatter the rear window.
The relieved woman was then pulled to safety by the two heroic policemen.
The two officers who saved the woman's life - Paul Watts and Simon Russell - have described the dangerous rescue, and revealed they believe she could have been less than a minute away from drowning.
'When we entered the water, I was talking to one of the (members of the public) who was trying to balance the vehicle and he said he was looking for a rock to try and smash the window,' Mr Russell told the New Zealand Herald.
He said once his baton failed he successfully broke through the window with a rock, but by this time the car was sinking at a rapid rate.
'At that time the car actually started to move very fast into the water. I was trying to hold the car, slowing it down from entering the water,' Mr Russell said.
Mr Watts and Mr Russell then managed to pull the woman from the car to safety, but said they got her out just in time.
'It was pretty close, probably 30 or 40 seconds after we managed to get the female out of the car, the car was already slipping further into the water,' Mr Watts said.
'I'd say she'd probably only had maximum probably another minute, minute-and-a-half if she hadn't got out,' he told the NZ Herald.
Mr Watts described the dramatic rescue as 'pretty much part of a routine job being a police officer' in another interview, saying the whole operation only took about 40 seconds. The car was fully submerged just a minute after the woman was freed from it.
The sunken BMW is frightening proof that the woman would not have made it without the help of the quick-thinking policemen
A tow truck starts to pull the car out of Waitemata Harbour in Auckland as a police officer watches on
The two officers received a call from Police Commissioner Mike Bush on Tuesday afternoon, commending them on their efforts.
'It's just another day on the job sir', Mr Watts told the commissioner, according to stuff.co.nz.
Detective Sergeant Callum McNeill said police were still trying to work out how the bizarre incident occurred.
He said the woman, who was naturally in shock, got away with just a 'few cuts and bruises and is lucky to be alive,' stuff.co.nz reported.
Erwin Kampos saw the BMW go straight into the drink after driving over the Northcote Point Ferry Terminal's car park rock wall while he was fishing and immediately went into the water to attempt to smash the window.
'The two police officers smashed the back windscreen, I tried to smash the sides and they didn't want to break. We were running out of time because the vehicle was filling up,' he said.
Another witness saw the car was 'filling up fast' and said the officers got to the woman 'just in the nick of time.'
The woman in now in hospital in a stable condition and is expected to make a full recovery.
by dailymail
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