In storm-ravaged Santa Clarita, California, last March, Margarito Martinez approached Runner Road slowly. A small stream had overflowed onto the road. Martinez, driving a Toyota SUV, figured he'd be OK.
Halfway across, the rushing waters grabbed hold of his vehicle, sweeping it off the road and washing it down a rocky stream bed. It finally stopped a good 80 feet away, when the water somehow lifted the SUV and landed it in the ground at a 45-degree angle. Injured, shaken, and trapped inside with the muddy water rising quickly and the door seriously damaged, Martinez was certain that he was going to die.
On the road right behind Martinez were a partly-rental delivery worker and his niece. They watched the horror unfold, and when Martinez's SUV came to rest in the middle of the river, the man leaped to act. First, he grabbed heavy-duty ropes from the back of his truck and fixed the SUV to nearby posts. Then he climbed atop Martinez's vehicle and struck on a rear window with his fists. Frustrated, he turned to his niece and yelled, "Give me a rock!"
Over and over he smashed the rock into the window, to no avail. "We were scared that something else was going to come down and take the SUV, take him, take my uncle," Krystina Reyes, 27, told CBSLA. Her uncle has not publicly revealed his name.
Reyes's uncle shouted to Martinez to move away from the window. He braced himself—right foot on the spare tire, left in the wheel well. He leaned back and threw the rock. Finally, the glass broke and the man kicked in the remaining pieces. Soon, a soaked Martinez came out through the window frame, and the men escaped to dry land. Martinez was saved by an anonymous delivery worker.
