"At approximately 3:30 a.m., dispatch received a call of a vehicle that left the roadway and ended up upside-down in a creek," said Capt. Jerry Swift of the Gastonia Fire Department. "There was a female, still inside the vehicle, screaming for help."
Gastonia firefighters battled the freezing cold water to rescue the woman off Thompson Road, just north of the South Carolina border.
"A crew from Gastonia and Union Road actually had to get into the water with extrication equipment and actually pry doors open to reach the female to pull her out," Swift said.
The woman was taken to Gaston Memorial Hospital, where she is being treated for hypothermia. Firefighters said she is lucky to be alive, considering she had only about a 5-inch air pocket to breathe.
Her name was not released.
Road crews spent the rest of the day repairing the bridge that the woman
