A mother is extremely grateful to her legally blind son who took action when their basement apartment in Queens began flooding due to Hurricane Ida.
The mom is alive because her son heard her cries for help and pulled her through a small window, rescuing her from drowning, ABC 7 reported Tuesday.
“He literally saved my life at that moment,” Danette Rivera stated.
She went into the basement after a tenant told her it was flooding and was assessing the damage when the water rushed in.
“Every time I came back down to touch the ground, the water would go above my head,” she recalled. “I was covered with feces, I was covered with dirty water. I really thought I was going to drown.”
In a Facebook post September 1, Rivera shared video footage of her flooded property:
She helped her tenant escape through the small window but the water kept forcing her down and that was the moment she began screaming.
“I say, ‘Justin, I’m gonna drown, I’m drowning.’ As loud as I can, as if it was my last breath,” Rivera stated.
Thankfully, Justin heard her cries in the nick of time.
“At some point she was just screaming for help. I was taken aback by how deep the water was in the yard,” he explained.
Despite the danger, he rushed over to help.
“There was a sense of importance, but it was more like a calm rationalization of what needed to be done,” he added.
Although squeezing through the window left her bruised and sore, Rivera was glad to be alive.
In a Facebook post, she said her son was blind “but weak he’s not!” and told followers how much she loved him:
“There was no way for me to call him. There was no way for me to contact him. So for him to come precisely at that moment, it was just amazing grace,” Rivera told ABC 7.