January 08, 2014 - 2:51 PM
SASKATOON - A Saskatoon woman says she is grateful to be alive after her car went off a bridge and plunged into the icy South Saskatchewan River.
Breanna Pegg was on her way to lunch with her cousin Dec. 30 and was travelling east on the Circle Drive North Bridge when she lost control and went up a snowbank.
The 23-year-old nurse had crossed the span many times before, but this time her car ended up in the river.
"I remember realizing my car was going over the barrier into the river. I remember just thinking: 'Oh my God, I'm going to die,'" she told radio station CKOM.
"When I first came to, I remember thinking: 'Oh, I'm alive, I'm so relieved!'"
Pegg's survival instincts had kicked in as her car had up-ended and begun to sink. The power windows didn't work and she noticed a hole in the bottom corner of the smashed windshield, so she crawled out onto the hood. She slowly lowered herself into the water and swam over to the edge, where she was able to pull herself onto the ice.
"I knew that the water was going to suck and it was going to be really cold, but it wasn't really that bad. I guess the adrenaline was pumping," she said. "The coldest I got was when I was pulling myself on the ice."
That's when the pain from her broken clavicle hit.
"I stayed on my stomach really flat to pull myself across the ice sheets. I just kept pulling myself along my stomach as much as I could towards the edge of the river," she said.
"By the time I was just about to the edge, that's when people arrived."
Pegg was taken to hospital. Her car was left in the river, where it will stay until spring.
She says that the one good thing to come from the accident was a public conversation about snow removal on the bridges.
"I think that's awesome. I'm so glad that there's not going to be any of those snow ramps around."
(CKOM)
News from © The Canadian Press, 2014