Just in a days work (Ally)

Today started off as fine and sunny apart from the alarm going off…. Belted down to London to start my turn at doing World Challenge operational duty. Basically ensuring the people in danger or have problems on our expeditions get helped. There the team are merrily helping challengers get home after appendix operations, ensuring teams got looked after robbed at gun point etc - and then all of a sudden, the heavens opened with thunder and lightening cracking all around us.
We know every year that the road we look down onto from our office has a huge dip and this gets flooded in a down pour which it duly started doing. We all lined the windows and watched (as only a crowd out of the rain can do) as the cars slowly went through the water. But also in wonderment as the water level rose and rose as the hail storms continued to fall. (Small digression – this is the height of summer!)

It rose and rose – about a foot in five minutes. Cars were turning back and so started a traffic jam that would last well into the night; in fact i'm still stuck here at work at 9 pm as i write this. One car decided that he was man enough (we did not know it at the time but it could only have been a man - sorry chaps we love you, but…) to drive through. So he revved up and hit the water at about 30 miles an hour much to our disbelief which quickly turned to amusement as we watched the water swallow the wheels and slowly rise. The wheels at the back started to float and then the front left the bottom and the car floated around and around.

So there we were, an emergency operational room, watching in awful fascination as this car floated around a little lake in a London Road. Suddenly it dawned on us that the guy might actually be in danger as the water level was continuing to rise – so swiftly it all turned to action. So, we called the fire brigade and so job done, all went back to their work stations …

But then a cry went up and we looked out the window to see two of our chaps out in the rain, throwing a rescue rope and swimming in the lake/road to get this chap out of his car as it was starting to sink badly. They dragged the car toward the fence where they could help him out (themselves chest high in water) and got him out of the car. The rescued chap spent the next three minutes not thinking about how close he had come to drowning - but beseeching the boys to save his car. They put up a valiant fight but had to be told to just leave it - and it promptly sank! I'm embarrassed to confess that a great cheer went up from all the offices. After clothing the wet heroes, it was back to work rescuing challengers off the top of mountains

Then the fire engine arrived...

The photos

Ally told the amazingstory about the flood outside her work and the rescuing of the man from his car. Well, here is the pictorial evidence! Taken by a happy snapper from World Challenge while the rescue was taking place. Here's how the road looks when it's not flooded.

The rescue

Here's the World Challenge team recuing the chap from the sinking car. Look at all that water. This photo appeared in the Evening Standard the following day with the story - but not as entertaining as Ally´s version.

Trying to save the car

Sinking

They were not successful and soon the car had sunk beyond retrieval. Within 5 minutes of this photo, the car disappeared completely from view. Needless to say, it was a complete right off...