Mr. Peter Johnson, aged twenty-three, fought for half an hour to escape from his trapped car yesterday when it landed upside down in three feet of water. Mr. Johnson took the only escape way — through the boot(行李箱).
Mr. Johnson's car had finished up in a ditch(沟渠) at Romney, Kentucky, after slidding on ice and hitting a bank. "Fortunately, the water began to come in only slowly," Mr. Johnson said, "I couldn't force the doors because they were jammed against the walls of the ditch and dared not open the windows because I knew water would come flooding in. "
Mr. Johnson, first tried to attract the attention of other motorists by sounding the horn(喇叭) and hammering on the roof and boot but failed. Then he began to use his own efforts to escape.
Later he said, "It was really a half penny that saved my life. It was the only coin I had in my pocket and I used it to unscrew(旋松) the back seat to get into the boot. I hammered hard with a hammer trying to make someone hear, but no help came. "
It took ten minutes to unscrew the seat, and a further five minutes to clear the boot. Then Mr. Johnson found a wrench(扳手) and began to work on the boot lock. Fifteen minutes passed by. "It was the only chance I had. Finally it gave, but as soon as I unlocked the boot, the water and mud poured in.
His hands and arms cut and hurt, Mr. Johnson got to Beckett Farm nearby, where he was looked after by the farmer's wife, Mrs. Lucy Bates. Trembling in a blanket, he said, "That thirty minutes seemed like hours. " Only the car wheels could be seen, the police said last night. The vehicle had sunk into two feet of mud at the bottom of the ditch.
