Alice Modine drives everywhere; to ballet, to yoga, to lunch, and in any weather, but on Saturday she says it was pouring rain and she could not see a thing.
She tried to pull over and then noticed water started coming into her car. She had driven her car into a lake off Glades Road east of the Florida Turnpike in western Boca Raton.
"I tried to move the car forward and back nothing worked. I tried to pull down the windows they didn’t work, I tried to open the doors nothing worked," Modine said. "So I thought to myself this has happened before, not to me, but to other people and I may stay in the car forever. I’ve lived a good life, I’ve had a very happy life up to now. It just may be the end of it. I didn’t panic. I didn’t feel upset."
At peace with herself, she didn't realize it wasn't her time yet and a hero came to her rescue.
"The door opened and this very nice young man said 'hold on to me I'll get you to a dry place.' So I held onto him, did exactly as he told me, and he posted me in the grass at Glades where the sidewalk is and he said 'is there anything in the car that you need?' I said, 'yes, I would like to have my purse and all the paperwork pertaining to the car is in the glove compartment,' and he said, 'OK, I’ll get it,'" Modine said.
Alice said the young man dove into the water to retrieve her things. She thinks she may have asked him for his name but could not remember.
"He was good-looking, probably in his 30s and I somehow think he may have been connected with the military at one time or now because he handled this whole thing so professionally," said Modine said.
Modine is hoping that the young man who helped her on Saturday will see this story and come forward so she can thank him properly.
"I’ve been haunted by this wish to be able to thank him because I really must thank him for my life," she said.