Bob Van Dillen, a meteorologist at Fox News, did more than report on Hurricane Helene Friday morning — much more. He saved a woman’s life.
Van Dillen is being hailed a hero after stopping a live broadcast on “Fox & Friends” to save a woman trapped in her car as floodwaters rose outside Atlanta.
Watch below:
“I know that we’re swamped here with all of the 911 calls, because there are so many high-water rescues that we’ve already documented so far… [she] called 911 and, five minutes, 10 minutes, and you could hear screaming, right? You could hear through my live shot, real loud” Van Dillen said after the moment on Fox News.
“That’s her car right there,” Van Dillen said of the woman’s car that was almost completely submerged. “So I just said, ‘You know what? I realize I’m with you guys on the air, but I can’t let it go.”
“I took my wallet out of my pants, and I went in there, waded in, got chest deep,” Van Dillen said.
“You know how it is. I was concerned that one, maybe there was a nice swift current, but the current really wasn’t that bad. But, the water temperature I was afraid of, too. The water temperature is probably about 80 [degrees]. So, all of those things were working pretty nicely, so, that being said, the water came up to about my chest,” Van Dillen recounted.
He found the woman still strapped into the car.
“She was in there, she was still strapped into her car and the water was actually rising and getting up into the car itself, so she was about, almost neck deep submerged in her own car,” Van Dillen said.
When Van Dillen reached her, he told her to undo her seatbelt.
“I said, ‘Let me have your phone, let me have your bags,’ then put [her] on my back and we walked in… she’s fine, she was in shock,” Van Dillen said.
“She was cold, shivering, so I gave her one of my shirts and she was in our car, just warming up, about 20 minutes later the fire department came, saw that we were OK and went on to the next rescue, wherever they’re going,” he said.
Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida at 11:10 p.m. ET Thursday.
