Team of first responders meet woman whose life they saved New Year's Day

TAMPA, Fla. (FOX 13) - Tears of joy were flowing Wednesday morning at the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office as Amanda Antonio hugged and thanked the first responders and 911 dispatcher she now calls her heroes.

Antonio was run off the road on New Years Day while driving home from a party. Her car flipped over into a retention pond, quickly filling with water and mud.

"When I first got on the phone with her, she said, 'The waters coming in fast.' It’s at her waistline. She kept saying it was going up to her chest, and right before the deputies got there, she told me it was at her chin. So I was very stressed out," said Cheyanne Allen, the dispatcher who took Antonio's 911 call.

It's the first big emergency call Allen has ever had to take.

As the water continued to rise with the minutes ticking by, Allen was able to help first responders locate Antonio while continuing to talk to her during those heart-stopping moments.

"I'm really grateful to Cheyanne who kept me calm throughout everything. She is one of the many angels I met that night," said Antonio."I feel blessed. It’s surreal, the whole incident was surreal, it felt like I was dreaming the whole time."

With one hero on the phone, another was fighting through dense fog to get to Antonio's car.

"I've never had to be involved with a water rescue. It's a little scary," the first deputy on the scene, Ryan Cooper said. "You have a submerged vehicle and there's water and mud." 

Thursday, Deputy Cooper and dispatcher Allen were joined in greeting Antonio by the dive team members who worked against the clock to pull her to safety.

"Fire rescue had to take a backboard, put it on top of the mud, we put her on it and actually slid her across the mud that's how thick it was," said Deputy Jeremy Pollack, who helped to rescue Antonio.

Looking back, Antonio said she's grateful.

"If they didn’t get to me when they did, I feel like a couple more minutes and I would have been under water," said Antonio.

On Saturday, she will celebrate her 21st birthday, something her and family says is only possible thanks to the first responders she now calls her angels.