Passaic

NJ Driver Describes Flash Flood That Swept Her Car Into Underground Culvert

NBC Universal, Inc.

Nathalia Bruno can't believe she lived to tell the story.

The 24-year-old DoorDash driver was making a delivery on Monday when she found herself in a flash flood. At the time she was driving her silver Prius toward Clifton.

Suddenly, she was surrounded by pouring rain that flooded Benson Avenue in Passaic. Soon the waters rose to the height of the car's roof.

"When I realized there was too much water I didn't see grass or street or anything, and then the car started to get taken," Bruno describes the moment.

Bruno held onto the car for a few moments but the water was too strong. Her Prius was swept away into the nearby concrete culvert and under the street.

"It was very hard, I couldn't get my feet on the ground. There was a few times I could feel the ground but I couldn't stand up. I tried to put my head up to breathe," she said. "I thought it would never end. I though I would end up in the river."

Authorities at first doubted Bruno's story until they cut open the street, found the Prius and pulled it up out of the storm drain.

"I though it was God taking me. I really did think I was not going to survive," she said.

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