'I don't know how to survive this' - car flood victim

A woman has described her "terrifying" ordeal of being trapped in a car with her two small children in fast-rising flood water.

Pippa Langhorne, her parents and her children, aged two and five, were driving home to Worcester on Monday when they became trapped at Lindridge near the River Teme.

"This gush of water went over my bonnet and onto my windscreen," said Ms Langhorne.

"I carried on driving, and my car started slowing down," she explained. "Panic started setting in, and then it just stopped, and I couldn't restart the engine."

Ms Langhorne had taken an alternative route to avoid flooding, but her sat-nav ended up taking her down a road that was also flooded.

She said that as cars were passing in the opposite direction, she thought it would be safe - until a wave of water from another vehicle hit her car, stalling the engine.

Ms Langhorne said: "The water was coming up into my car, and it was now underneath my steering wheel, so our feet are raised. I've had to get my children out of the seats.

"It [was] pitch black; there were no streetlights; there was nothing. We were freezing, and the water was coming up into my seat.

"It was terrifying."

Her mother called the emergency services, who said they would send a fire crew to rescue the family.

But there followed an anxious 40-minute wait for them to arrive.

Ms Langhorne said her main concern was for her children's safety.

"I've never been in this situation, and I just kept thinking, 'How far away are [the fire crew]?'" she said.

"Because as it was getting darker, and the water was rising and getting in the car, I was like, 'I don't know how to survive this. I don't know what I'm going to do.'"

Finally, help arrived and Ms Langhorne and her family were put on a rescue boat.

"The minute we got on that boat, we all cried our eyes out with relief that we weren't in that car anymore," she said.

Ms Langhorne, who said her daughter was still traumatised by the experience, warned other drivers not to be complacent about flooded roads and said she recognised she and her family were lucky to be alive.

"We had no choice, and we didn't know that road was going to lead us into that [flooding]."

"You don't realise how quickly it comes."

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