{"id":448022,"date":"2026-11-05T06:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T06:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/448022\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T06:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T06:14:09","slug":"he-saved-my-life-port-st-lucie-woman-rescued-by-police-officer-from-sinking-van","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/448022\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;He saved my life&#8217;: Port St. Lucie woman rescued by police officer from sinking van"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbf.com\/news-team\/b01334e5-5687-482b-93de-c7a4b1ede900\" aria-label=\"Ari Hait profile page\" class=\"css-15eikfp\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/b01334e5-5687-482b-93de-c7a4b1ede900_1657581227.png\" width=\"48\" height=\"48\" alt=\"Ari Hait\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/a>PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"0\">A Port St. Lucie police officer rescued two people trapped in a sinking van after floodwaters pushed their van into a canal Monday morning.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"1\">In an exclusive interview, the woman who was rescued, Maria Andrade, told WPBF 25 News she was in the back of the van on her way home from a doctor&#8217;s appointment when floodwaters pushed the van into a canal.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"2\">The driver was able to call 911 and ask for help.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"4\">The police officer&#8217;s body camera footage shows him arriving less than two minutes after the call and immediately entering the water. <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"5\">The officer first pulled the driver out of the van and, with the help of firefighters, rescued Andrade, who was trapped inside.  <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"6\">Andrade, who only speaks Spanish, explained through her son, Raul Morales, that the floodwaters had gotten so bad, it was hard to tell where the road was.   <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"7\">\u201cShe says it was raining really, really hard,\u201d Morales said. &#8220;She couldn&#8217;t even see the road. It was just water.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"9\">Andrade said the van began sinking and filling up with water.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"10\">\u201cShe could hear the water just gushing in there. That\u2019s what pretty much told me, &#8216;Uh oh. I\u2019m in trouble,&#8217;\u201d Morales said.  <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"11\">Maria said she couldn\u2019t unlatch her seat belt and was trapped inside the van. <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"12\">But she also said she didn\u2019t have time to be scared because the officer arrived so quickly.  <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"13\">The van\u2019s driver told police the only way to get Maria out was through the back. <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"14\">One person entered the van and pushed while others pulled her out.  <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"16\">\u201cShe wants to thank the first responders for being really, really on top of it. She realized how quick they were about it and made her feel better about her situation,\u201d Morales said. \u201cThank you for helping her out and for being there for her. It\u2019s just &#8230; there\u2019s no words for it.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"17\">Stay up-to-date: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbf.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The latest headlines and weather from WPBF 25<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"18\">Get the latest news updates with the WPBF 25 News app. You can download it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbf.com\/article\/get-wpbf-25-news-on-the-go\/999316\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"19\">Follow us on social: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpbf25news\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WPBF25News\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/wpbf25news\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@WPBF\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@wpbf25news\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">TikTok<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. \u2014 A Port St. Lucie police officer rescued two people trapped in a sinking&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[40912,2675,86511,6549,1210,174241,115,1738,171,173,172,72383,174242,14822,4103,4825,221,189],"class_list":["post-448022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-back","tag-driver","tag-floodwater","tag-help","tag-life","tag-maria-andrade","tag-news","tag-police-officer","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-port-st-lucie-woman","tag-raul-morales","tag-van","tag-water","tag-way","tag-weather","tag-wpbf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}