Cold Case Files - I SURVIVED: I Felt Like I Had Escaped Through Death
Episode Date: July 26, 2025Jennifer is abducted and tortured by a serial killer who has already murdered four other women. Neely Ann is with her four year old daughter when they are trapped in the attic of their house ...by a flash flood.Apartments.com - To find whatever you’re searching for and more visit apartments.com the place to find a place.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Hi, iSurvive listeners. I'm Marisa Pinson. And before we get into this week's episode,
I just want to remind you that episodes of iSurvived as well as the A&E Classic podcast
Cold Case Files, City Confidential, and American Justice are all available ad free on the new
A&E Crime and Investigation channel on Apple Podcasts and Apple Plus for just $4.99 a month
or $39.99 a year. And now onto the show.
This episode contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners.
Listener discretion is advised.
He started sucking on my neck and I just laid there staring at the roof thinking, some people
are sick.
Real people.
That's when I opened the front door and I saw my car was already underwater.
So obviously I wasn't going anywhere and obviously my parents were not getting to me.
Who faced death.
And then I thought, I'm going to be raped.
At least.
What else?
I don't know.
But raped.
Definitely.
And lived to tell how.
And I said, you're a coward. You're a moron, you're not going to kill me, you're not going to kill me.
I was taunting him. I wanted him to go, yes I will, and just shoot me.
This is I Survived.
It's September 1992 in Palm Springs, California. Jennifer, a 19-year-old nurse, is working
the night shift at a handicapped children's center.
I had been laid a few times because I wasn't used to the bus schedule. And the lady that
I relieved, she told me if I was laid again, she was going to have to tell the boss. And
that kind of scared me because I was afraid to get in trouble or even lose my job, which I loved.
One night, Jennifer arrived at the bus stop early
and went to a store to buy food.
While waiting in line, she saw her bus go past.
And I just started to panic and looking at my watch,
thinking, I'm going to be late.
I'm going to get fired.
And then I just heard the sweetest little voice say,
excuse me, do you need a ride?
And I thought, yeah, I do, but you're a stranger.
So my initial reaction was, I looked at him and I said,
no, no thanks, I don't need a ride.
Thank you though.
The stranger rolled up his car window and began to drive away.
He was just gonna leave.
And so I had a split second to think and I was thinking, Ranger rolled up his car window and began to drive away. He was just gonna leave.
And so I had a split second to think and I was thinking, I need a ride.
He offered me a ride.
I'm gonna lose my job.
He's leaving.
If he were some sort of psycho, why would he just leave?
I think he would come try to drag me into the car or something.
And so I actually yelled to him, yeah, okay, yeah, I'll take a ride. And he was just so nice and he was just geeky
and just soft spoken and in stature,
physically smaller than me.
And of course my mentality back then when I was teenager,
I thought I could easily beat him up
if he were to do anything to me.
When we were pulling up to my work, he said,
so how about I pick you up in the morning and we go to breakfast?
So I thought, I'm just going to give him a fake number.
That always tells them you're not interested.
They call it once and then you never hear from them again.
And he was totally nice, totally friendly, and I was just thinking,
oh gosh, how sad for him when he calls that number
and it's not the right number. And so I just played it off. Okay, bye. Have a nice night. Yes,
he says, yes, I will. I'll give you a call. And I said, okay, see you later. And he dropped me off.
When her shift ended early the next morning, Jennifer walked to a nearby bus stop.
A car pulled up beside her.
It was him.
It was just him from the night before,
the happy-go-lucky, nice, still little scrawny guy
that was totally harmless.
And I thought, okay, I'll get a ride home with him
and I'm never gonna talk to him again, you know?
And so I got in the car and there was just a little talk
about how was your night, oh good, how was your night,
just typical stuff.
And then all of a sudden he said,
you know that phone number you gave me?
And I thought, oh gosh.
And he said, that was the wrong effing phone number.
And he just turned into a completely different person
and started yelling, started cussing.
He just became something that I had never seen before.
He just became evil.
He's cursing.
He's turned into another person.
I had no time to think.
I didn't know if he was just going to lash out and then be nice.
I didn't know what was was just going to lash out and then be nice. I didn't know what was happening.
It was really confusing.
Then he just pulled over really quick.
And then I saw a knife come out.
I saw a gun.
He pushed my head into the dashboard.
And he pulled my arms behind my back.
And he started pulling twine out from under the seat
and tying my hands with Twine.
And I started asking him if it was a joke,
what was he going to do to me?
And he said, shut up, bitch.
And he leaned over, and he locked my door,
and he put my seatbelt on me,
and then he pulled the lever on the side of my seat,
and then he just pushed my chest, and I went all the way back and then he just kept driving and I just stared at
the roof.
Jennifer's abductor drove her out of the city into the surrounding desert.
It is miles and miles of deserted desert with mattresses and burnt couches and if you see
a car out there that's kind of weird
you wonder what they're doing out there and then I thought I'm gonna be raped at
least what else I don't know but raped definitely I can't even put into words
how I felt all I could think of though was that I made a bad choice and I knew something bad
was going to happen.
And I knew I was with this person that wasn't going to show me any mercy no matter what
I said or what I did because I tried to say everything.
And his goal was to execute a plan.
You could see it in his eyes.
Jennifer's attacker is a serial killer.
Andrew Erdiales has already raped and murdered four women.
It was like, he was like a demon.
I've never seen a person act like that ever.
And just looking at him, he looked different.
If I would have seen what he looked like now,
the night before, I would have never went near that car.
It was just oozing out of his body.
He was just pure evil.
And it was like a nightmare coming to life.
He pulled over and he climbed into the passenger seat
where I was at.
He took my shoes off and he started hitting me with them
in the face and screaming at me,
screaming at me and calling me a bitch.
And he took his knife out and he just started trying to cut my shorts off of me.
Then he cut my underwear off of me on both sides and just pulled them out.
And that was the first time I thought he's done this before.
He was just do do do do do, you know, this was nothing for him.
He's done it before. Jennifer was sexually assaulted.
And then he grabbed my underwear,
and then he just started doing that to my face,
like punching out my mouth,
and he started shoving my underwear down my throat.
And then he got my bra,
and he tied it around my head to hold the underwear in.
And then he told me to tell him that I loved him.
My mouth were full of underwear, and I couldn't say anything.
But I knew if I tried to, it might save my life.
So I tried to say it, and I eventually just lodged the underwear into my mouth.
And then I just would say, I can't say it with the stuff on my face.
I tried to move my head. I couldn't do anything with my hands.
So he took it off, and he just got close to my face and looked me in the eyes and
he said it again. He said, tell me you love me. And so I said, I love you. And he
slapped me and he said, say it like you mean it, bitch. And I thought to myself,
oh my god, I'm only 19. I haven't told anybody that I loved him. I don't know how to say this."
So I said it again and it just, it just wasn't right. And so then he started strangling me.
I just sat there looking into his eyes thinking, this is going to be the last thing I see before I die. And thinking, too, what have I done so bad ever in my life
to deserve to be treated like this?
And then I decided not to look at him anymore,
so I shut my eyes,
and I heard a ringing in my ears really loud,
and my face felt really hot.
And then suddenly I just saw white
and I don't know how to explain any of it,
but I felt peace.
And that's when I believe he killed me.
I had no pain.
I had no fear.
I was, I felt like I was free from it. I felt like I had escaped through death and I was content.
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Jennifer is abducted by a stranger and driven into the desert. Her attacker is a serial killer who has already murdered four women. After being sexually assaulted and strangled,
Jennifer believes she is dead.
I felt like I had escaped through death and I was content.
I didn't know how I got there, but I knew I felt happy
and I knew that I was, that I had passed away.
And then suddenly I started feeling things happening to me again.
I started having feeling back in my body and the side of my head
and then a bash to the chest.
And then I saw his eyes close to me like this,
and then far away, and then close again, and far away.
But I didn't know what was happening.
And then all of a sudden I just came back into it,
and I could feel my whole body,
and I knew the situation again.
And he was bashing me back and forth
and hitting my head on the side of the car
and punching my chest.
And he was reviving me.
Because I think he didn't want me to die so quickly.
And then I just told him, kill me.
Please just kill me, because I knew he was going to.
And he kind of just looked at me. Please just kill me because I knew he was gonna. And he kind of just
looked at me and it was a look of no I'm gonna have some fun with you before I
kill you. He started sucking on my neck and I just laid there staring at the
roof thinking some people are sick and, none of my friends are gonna know where I'm at
when I do die.
I have no way to tell anyone anything.
And I just stared out the window and I saw a bird
and I thought, I wish I could tell that bird
to call 911 or something.
My thoughts were just ridiculous.
There was nothing that was gonna save me.
And then I felt his slobber going down
in between my breasts,
and I was just laying there in disgust.
And then when he was done sucking my neck,
he lifted his face up and he just looked at me in the face,
and then he smiled.
And that's when I realized he wasn't sucking my neck.
That's, he tried to take a bite out of my neck,
and he had skin and blood in his teeth.
He opened the door, and he pulled me out,
and I stood up,
and I saw how far away the road was,
and the cars looked like ants.
They were so small.
There was a burnt-down building. There was trash in the desert. Everything They were so small. There was a burnt down building. There was trash
in the desert. Everything just seemed so evil. And he put the gun in my mouth like that.
And he said, I'm going to pull it. And I just went, squinting my eyes. And then he didn't
pull it. And then he put it back up against my head. And I said, you're a coward. You're
a moron,
you're not gonna kill me, you're not gonna kill me.
I was taunting him, I wanted him to go,
yes I will and just shoot me.
I wanted to die.
I was done with it.
I didn't know what his plans were.
If he was gonna torture me for just the day,
maybe a week, maybe a year, I didn't know
and I didn't care.
All I knew was I was gonna die in the end.
So I would prefer to die now than be tortured like this.
So I yelled at him and called him names
and told him to kill me.
And then I could just see that Eve
was gonna change his plans.
He kind of looked a little bit confused
and he left me standing there and I just stood
there thinking, now what? What's going to top what have you are what you already have done to me?
You know, now what are you going to do? He pops the trunk and he gets out two bags and then my
heart just sunk because there was knife blades sticking out of the bags. And I just thought, oh my gosh, he's gonna cut me up.
And so I just begged him to kill me, and he wouldn't.
My arms are still tied behind my back.
He lifts my feet way up in the air,
and I just fall into the trunk,
and then he slams it shut.
And then he gets in the driver's side
and starts the car
and starts to drive back towards civilization.
So I started to think,
I know he's bringing me somewhere else,
and I know he's bringing me somewhere else
because I just ruined his plan, because I told him to bringing me somewhere else. And I know he's bringing me somewhere else because I just ruined his plan
because I told him to kill me here.
And it made him a little confused looking,
and he wanted to be in control.
I did just start to panic
because I thought, who am I kidding?
I'm in a trunk now, and I have my hands tied.
He's bringing me somewhere else.
It was another feeling of, I'm doomed.
What am I going to do now?
And so I started to panic and I started to cry
and I started to shake.
And then I just stopped and I thought,
I'm just going to pray.
I just said, God, you really need to hear me right now
because I'm in a really bad situation
and I'm with a guy that's like the devil
and I'm gonna be cut up into pieces
and I really need to know that you're here right now
because you're the only person that I can call.
Then I just got adrenaline and hysterical strength
and confidence all of a sudden.
And I didn't feel scared.
And then I just started going like that
and trying to pull my arms apart.
And I kept doing it and maybe for a minute,
nothing would happen, and I wouldn't quit.
And I just kept trying it, and then I heard,
pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.
And the twine was coming off.
And then eventually it all came off,
and I was just like, oh my gosh, okay, I got that done.
Now what?
Now I need to get out of the trunk.
And so I went like this and I felt
where the middle of the trunk would be.
And then there was a bunch of a board,
the carpeted board over that.
So I started ripping it all off
and then I twisted the lever
and then I saw light coming all in.
We were on a road that was a two-way road,
and it had a lot of cars that would travel on it.
It was on the outskirts of the town.
He was driving pretty fast,
and I could hear him talking under his breath
and pushing the gas, and then he got stuck on the sand.
That's when I threw the trunk open, and I jumped out, and then he got stuck on the sand. That's when I threw the trunk open,
and I jumped out, and my hand got caught.
And I started trying to pull my hand out,
and then his door opened, and when I saw his door open,
I just ripped my hand out of there,
and I just took off running.
And I kept thinking to myself, don't look back,
because I knew he was behind me.
I didn't know if I wanted to know how close he was,
but I kept thinking, don't look back, don't look back.
My curiosity got the best of me and I turned around
and looked back and he was chasing me down the road
with a machete and when I saw that,
I thought I'm still getting away, but I need help.
I need someone to pick me up.
I need a ride.
And the car pulled alongside of me.
And when they were going the same direction as me, I just grabbed onto their side view mirror
and I was running with their car and banging on them and trying to grab at them.
And the window was halfway down, and the woman said,
no, go, go faster.
And he rolled his window up.
It was an elderly couple,
and they just left me.
And then I saw a truck coming towards me.
And so I was just screaming,
putting my hands up and running towards that truck
as fast as I could.
And the next thing I knew,
they were opening the doors and pulling me into the truck. The only evidence they had was
the size of his teeth that they measured on my neck, nothing else. They had no tire
tire prints, tire tracks because when they went to look for them, a bulldozer had already run over them to
clean the sides of the street.
Just everything went in his favor in the way of evidence. There was, there was nothing but the teeth marks.
Jennifer heard nothing from the police for five years.
Then one morning in 1997, a police car arrived at her house.
They told me to come down to the police station, so I went down there.
And they said that they might have caught the guy who had done this to me five years ago.
And I was like, oh my gosh.
And they said, okay, we want you to look away and we're going to put down some pictures.
And so I looked at the pictures and right away he stood out and I said, it's this one.
The detective kind of sat back and picked up the picture and he said, well, this is
the guy that did this to you.
He knows your name.
He knows everything about you.
And this guy also is a serial killer who killed eight women and you're the only one that
got away.
Police had already arrested her attacker at Wolf Lake in Indiana after a tip from a prostitute.
A gun registered in his name was linked to the murders of two women found floating in
the lake in 1996. So he was arrested in Chicago.
And when they arrested him, he sat down and he just started talking about everything.
And he told them, well, I guess I'm not going to work today.
And you might want to call the cops out in California because they'll have some
information for you too.
And there was one that got away and her name was Jennifer.
Andrew Erdiales confessed to the murder of eight women.
Four of his victims were killed after he attacked Jennifer.
He was sentenced to death in 2002,
but in 2003 executions were halted in Illinois.
Erdiales was found dead in his prison cell in 2018.
The cause of death was ruled suicide by hanging.
I survived because I prayed to God
and I thought rationally and logically
instead of thinking emotionally.
And in thinking like that,
I was able to figure out the way to get
out of the situation instead of being a victim and panicking and letting the
situation take me. He confessed to killing all eight women and he knew
details of everything. He knew color of their underwear, the styles of their shoes, the material of their shoes.
He knew my address.
He knew my, where I lived, where I worked.
He knew everything about me.
And he told the cops everything.
And his story and my story matched exactly. form narrative episodes backed by meticulous research exploring cases where passion leads
to peril.
Take, for instance, Blanche Taylor Moore, a seemingly devout preacher's wife who concealed
a deadly secret, leaving a trail of poisoned partners.
Or the tragic tale of Chad Shelton and Dwayne Johnson, whose sudden deaths unveiled a web
of familial deceit and revenge.
These aren't just stories, they're deep dives into the human psyche
and the dark side of love.
Join us on Love Murder as we uncover the chilling narratives
of love gone fatally wrong.
Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
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It's May, 2010 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Neelyann, a teacher and solo mother, lives with her four-year-old daughter.
It has been raining constantly for several days.
Well, nothing is that predictable in Nashville, but we have all seasons.
So I mean, we get a little bit of everything.
And we definitely go through the periods that it rains a lot.
So you did hear people on the news talking about,
you know, there might be some flooding or,
but I mean, it wasn't like a panic,
this is gonna be awful.
It was just, there was talk that it was a lot more than normal
and it had been pretty consistent and constant for five days.
On the sixth day of rain,
Nealey Ann was with her daughter in the living room.
We were sitting on the couch
and when I'm grading my papers, she does her pretend work.
So she had all her little pretend papers out and
You know my mom had called to check on us because I talked to my mom and dad, you know every day and it had been
raining a lot and
That's when I got up and I checked it outside the door and I was like, you know mom
It's there's some rain in the yard, but you know, I really think it's gonna be fine
Really? There wasn't even any on the street yet. It was basically in my yard, in my neighbor's yard,
there would be little puddles.
And in mine, there really wasn't
even what I would consider a puddle.
It just looked really, really wet,
and you wouldn't let your kid go play in it
because it'd be messy.
And so I went back to grading,
and I had stacks everywhere.
It's the end of the semester,
and literally I heard what sounded like if you were
at the ocean when the water comes in.
But I wasn't at the ocean, so I knew that's not what it was.
And I said out loud, I hear water.
It's weird, because when I stood up,
I really didn't even know which direction to go.
I just knew that I heard water.
And then I happened to turn and look at my sunroom,
and it's just one step down.
And I could already see,
oh, there was brown water all the way up to the next level.
So, I mean, it was that fast.
It's not like trickling in the house.
It literally sounds like if you're standing on the ocean
and you hear the water come in,
that's what it sounds like coming into the house.
Alarmed, Nealy Ann rang her mother.
I said, Mom, you know, water's coming in everywhere.
And so she said, Daddy and I are coming.
We're on our way.
And the time that I'm standing there, it's almost up to the couch now.
As the water continued to rise, Neely Ann's main concern was her daughter, Lowell Ann.
I pick her up, and you know, she's four, so she's not a baby anymore.
So I've got her and I've got the two dogs
and I take them to the kitchen countertop
because that was the highest thing.
At that point, I can tell Lola-Lanne is scared.
Everything is floating.
Lola-Lanne's baby dolls are floating by, everything.
Computer, I mean, it's all.
And at one point, the refrigerator's behind me
and Lola-Lanne says, Mommy, the refrigerator's moving. And at one point, the refrigerator's behind me, and little Ann says, mommy, the refrigerator's moving.
That's when I opened the front door,
and I saw my car was already underwater.
So obviously, I wasn't going anywhere,
and obviously, my parents were not getting to me.
My thought was, I did not want to call 911
in front of my daughter,
because I didn't know how many questions they would ask,
how much fright it would cause.
I called my mom back, and I said, mom, you know, the water's rising very quickly.
My car's under water.
Don't dare come here.
I need you to call 911.
And she said, you know, well, how bad is it?
And I said, I need you to call 911.
They need to come get us.
911 advised Nealy Ann to move everyone up onto her kitchen countertop.
Well, that's where I already was with Lil' Ann and the dogs.
And I took a deep breath in because then I thought, okay, if that's the advice I'm
getting, this is about to get bad because, well, I'm feeling it rising up past my stomach
at that point.
Automatically, I knew I need to stay calm.
I don't need to let her know how serious this is.
I guess for me as a mom, that what she needed from me was just primary.
And so I had all the fear. I had all the anxiety.
I was terrified. I knew deep down, like, it was a very serious situation.
At that point, I was moving from mentally, at the beginning it was, I am losing everything I own.
I cannot believe I'm about to start over as a single mom
to I want to get out of here alive with my daughter.
I knew when the water was rising that quickly
and I could feel it on my waist
and I could feel it swirling around
and the electricity was still on and, you know,
everything's floating that we had to get to the attic.
Neilie Ann climbed up into the attic with her daughter, Lowell Ann.
While we were in the attic, I also had to constantly just remind her that it's going to be okay
and we're safe because you were hearing noises that you don't hear in a house.
Things breaking and crashing, because as the water would come in the current,
I'm assuming it was furniture falling, you would hear loud thuds,
which you wouldn't normally think you would hear with water,
but things were falling against the walls.
And the furniture that was in the sunroom when we left was in my living room, and stuff
that was in the bedroom was floating in the kitchen.
And it was, I mean, things were just everywhere and the sounds were just so eerie.
I get her calmed down, and we're reading books
and singing songs, and as a mom,
I could tell she was calm at that point.
She had no idea that our lives were in danger at all.
So I continued to play with Lowell Ann,
but as I'm doing that, I'm looking over my shoulder
and the water is coming up so quickly.
The attic steps probably had about eight steps
and there were two left that were dry.
So the water, it definitely was over five feet
and I know if the water rises much more,
I'm gonna have to start thinking about getting out of here
because there are no windows in my attic.
Like once it got to the attic, that was it for us.
We had nowhere else to go.
There was no way to climb on the roof or anything like that.
And you know, at the time you feel safe in the attic,
but as the mom, you're watching the water rise.
And I knew if it got over my head
before I got out of the house,
I couldn't even get her out of there.
And so I kept playing with her, but again, I said to myself,
I've got, I'm giving myself 10 minutes.
And if I don't hear from 911, I don't hear,
if I don't hear something, we have to leave.
At that point, I felt like if I get out of here pretty soon,
I can stand on my tiptoes and I can hold her up
above my head to get her outside.
But I also knew once I got outside,
it was gonna be higher than that.
So I mean, I didn't wanna leave the attic.
Neely Ann received a text message from her sister.
It said, John is on his way.
And John is our family friend.
I've known him since I was 10.
But so I texted her back and said, by boat.
Because I mean, I knew how high the water was in my house.
So that meant it was higher than that outside.
You know, because at my house, there's
two steps, three steps going down into the yard.
And she said, no, he's swimming in.
10 minutes later, John reached the house.
We're sitting there and we're reading books
and I hear, hey, Niels.
And I can hear it's coming from the front door.
So he comes in and I mean, it's all the way up here
on him at that point.
When he was standing looking up at me in the attic
and he's standing down here,
I can see the movement of the water over his shoulders. Like I can see how it's moving on him. And he is a very adventurous person,
probably too adventurous, grew up on the water. And when I saw his face, like I knew this is
so serious. He said, we need to get out of here. And I said, okay, well, you know,
fire department supposed to be coming, 911 supposed to be coming. He said, no, we need to get out of here." And I said, okay, well, you know, fire department's supposed to be coming,
911's supposed to be coming.
He said, no, we need to go ahead and get out of here.
Let me go get something for Lowell land to float on.
You know, and at this point,
the water's almost all the way up.
You know, all you see are baby dolls
and stuff floating around.
But he found my brown leather ottoman,
and it was, you know, it's a pretty good sus ottoman
about that, you know, Lowell land could lay on it flat. And that was as much space as it had. I said, what are we gonna do? And he said, you know, it's a pretty good sus ottoman about that. You know, low land could lay on it flat, and that was as much space as it had.
I said, what are we going to do?
And he said, you know, I'm going to hold onto this end of the ottoman.
You stay towards the back, beside her, and we're going to get out of the house.
So when we got to the front door, though, I looked at his face and he said, okay, now.
And so, I mean, I knew it was going to be awful.
He said, when we get out, it we get out, the current's really strong.
And I'm at the end of the dead-end street,
so we now have to travel all the way down to the end.
And at this point, what you see is the tops of trees and houses.
There are no cars. You can see nothing else.
And we, of course, are the only people out there.
So, I mean, it looks like a just deserted,
it looks like something you'd see in a movie,
like with like two people holding onto an ottoman
out in the middle of like a brown ocean.
All you could see were trees in the tops of houses.
So it looked like a deserted thing
that you would see in a movie.
It was way above my head, definitely above John's head.
There was no walking in any way, shape.
I mean, you definitely had to swim and kick to try and stay, you know, with the current.
And at that time it is still pouring down rain the entire time, through every second
of the entire thing.
So at one point I looked at John and I said, I need you to find a tree or something like
for us to lean up against, rest against, because I mean at that point my legs were shaking,
I mean, you know know physically I was exhausted.
And about that time I looked at the end of the street and my brother's friend, the fireman,
was at the end of the street and had a canoe.
He was with two other men and they were screaming stop, like stop, stop, stop.
They started to canoe towards us to get to us.
And it was so strong that it took three very fit people
paddling a canoe to get to us.
That's how strong it was.
With only enough room for LowaLand in the canoe,
Nealyann had to swim behind it.
We started going towards the end of the street
and it was so amazing how strong it was.
I mean, I've been in the ocean so many times
and I've never felt anything like that.
But the weirdest thing is we got to the end of the street
and then we took a left and it was maybe three houses down.
Then it starts an incline on the street.
There are all these people standing there
to see if we make it to safety.
We go past, you know, maybe two or three houses
and because the street is on an incline,
we literally paddled and you can hear the concrete
on the bottom of the canoe and we got out.
At that point, like it sets in like,
we're both just shaking like uncontrollably
because I didn't even really think about
like how cold the water was.
And of course then I'm sure the shock setting in of like,
okay, we're alive and we're safe and it's going to be okay.
The May 2010 Tennessee flood is considered a once-in-1,000-year event.
In some areas, more than 19 inches of rain fell in two days.
21 people died in Tennessee.
If one of us had panicked, if Lowell Ann had gotten upset or I had allowed fear to take
over, you know, we would not have been able to all get out safely.
I mean, the water was that strong.
I wasn't thinking about it at the time, but like for days my body, I couldn't even hardly
move, you know, from trying to hold the ottoman still and kicking and trying to stay with
the current.
And if at any point one of us had not been on that ottoman and had not been able to hold on or if she had fallen off,
it would not have ended the same.
It wouldn't have.
You don't ever really think you're going to be praying, like, let my kid be okay or let me be okay.
But at that point, obviously it was very real.
So, but we are okay.
So that's what matters.
I survived because I'm a mom
and I wanted to take care of my kid.
You know, I was just able to stay focused,
just focused on my daughter and, you know,
that we were gonna be okay.
Glass half full, not half empty.
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