Atlanta
CNN
—

Angelina Madut knew the drive home from her night shift at a bakery in suburban Atlanta was risky.

Warnings about Helene’s potential to flood neighborhoods and bring down trees had been circulating for hours. But like everyone else who couldn’t bear the financial hit of missing a day of work because of the storm, Madut got into her car.

She had to get home from work.

At the same time, a news crew had set up in the Buckhead neighborhood – not far from Peachtree Creek – early Friday to report on the damage awaiting Helene.

As Madut navigated into town – and onto the same road – before dawn, she was unaware of how much water had accumulated on the road ahead of her.

Soon her car lost traction.

And then it started floating.

She called her husband Ernest.

“You need to put it in reverse if you can,” she told her. “You just have to open the window, get on the roof of the car and see if anyone can see you.”

“In the meantime,” he said, “I need to call 911.”

Ernest Madut hung up and called 911 to report where someone – anyone – could find his stranded wife, he later told CNN.

Then he called her back.

At this point, Angelina Madut had noticed people in a vehicle nearby – the journalists, including former HLN meteorologist Bob Van Dillen.

“Okay, can you roll down the window?” Ernest asked his wife.

But when she did, the water came in, her husband later recalled.

Angelina panicked.

“Wave to them!” he shouted.

Van Dillen discovered them.

And took action.

The experienced journalist threw himself into a flood that reached up to his chest and pulled Madut out of her white limousine – and onto his own back.

Then, with Madut’s hands clasped around his chest, Van Dillen began trotting up Sagamore Drive, with Madut leaning on his left side, video from Fox Weather shows. With every step, her soaked black and white shirt and jeans appeared on the surface.

“She was cold. I gave her my shirt,” Van Dillen told his colleagues, according to the video. “Her husband is going to pick her up and the fire truck came. They are good. Everyone is fine.”

After daybreak, Madut’s car was still in the brown flood, with only the roof and the top few inches of its windows visible.

As for her, a shocked Madut told CNN that Van Dillen saved her life.

Later, after her husband arrived, Van Dillen advised him not to head toward the crowded creek but to take a different route.

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.