'I wouldn't be alive without them,' says woman rescued in Indiantown by paramedic, deputy

INDIANTOWN — Audrey Tucker said she doesn't think she or her dog would be alive today if it weren't for the deputy and paramedic who rescued her from steep water Tuesday night.

"When you look at the pictures (of the car) it looks like I could have died, but I was barely hurt at all," Tucker said.

Around 7 p.m. Tuesday, Tucker, 22, of western Martin County, was driving on Southwest Farm Road in Indiantown on her way to get ice cream from McDonald's with her dog in the backseat. Suddenly, she saw a wild hog in the road and slammed on the brakes.

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Tucker said despite her efforts to brake, her fiance's 2009 Mitsubishi Eclipse failed to stop and she veered off the road and into a 4- to 5-foot-high retention pond. 

After losing control of the car, Tucker said she remembers being knocked unconscious for about a minute. When she woke up, the car was partially underwater and began to fill with smoke from the airbags deploying, she said. 

She found her phone and called 911, as water rushed into her car in the dark. She turned on the phone's flashlight app so first respondents could find her in the murky water.

"I mean, cars were coming and I was screaming, but it was dark and nobody could see me," Tucker said. 

As the car disappeared into the dark pool of water, Tucker said she thought she and her  1 ½-year-old Rottweiler mix, Hendrix, would drown.

But Martin County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Anthony Blachowski and Martin County Fire Rescue Emergency Medical Technician Dan McCarthy came to her rescue.

As Blachowski and McCarthy helped pull Tucker out of the water, she said she kept asking them to rescue Hendrix from the car. She'd had the big dog since he was a puppy.

"All I kept saying was 'save my dog, save my dog,'" Tucker said. "I told them they had to save my dog; I can't do this without him."

The pair got the 80-pound-dog out of the car safely and the dog began to cough up water.

Tucker said her fiance's car was totaled. 

Tucker said she was taken to Cleveland Clinic Tradition Hospital to be checked over, and later was released.

Despite a mild concussion and some scrapes, Tucker said she and her dog came out of the wreck unharmed. 

"I'm really thankful for the cops because obviously they have to save people, but they don't have to save animals," she said. "I would have been devastated if they didn't save (Hendrix)."