Trapped in Car, Woman Prays, Laughs, Lives

LAS VEGAS, N.M. —  A woman who was trapped for 45 minutes after her car plunged upside down into an icy river said today that she kept her face in a dwindling air pocket, prayed and even laughed aloud to keep from panicking.

Catherine Urioste, 37, came away from the accident with a few scratches and bruises and a “terrible cold,” but no frostbite.

Temperatures were below zero Friday as Urioste was driving to work when the car hit a patch of ice and went out of control. It skidded, hit an embankment and overturned in the air, crashing upside down through the three-inch-thick ice covering the Pecos River.

She said water poured through the broken windshield immediately after the crash.

Swallowed Water

“When I first went in, I was underwater and I was breathing real hard and I swallowed a lot of water,” she said in a telephone interview. “I got a hold of myself and kept still to find out how the car was situated.

“Then I just pushed with my legs and found the air pocket back by the back seats,” a survival technique she had learned from television.

As she held herself in place, the water lapped just beneath her chin.

She said she prayed, talked to herself, even laughed to stem her rising panic.

“I started to (panic), but I thought, ‘I’ll drown myself for sure, I’ll die for sure if I panic,’ ” she recalled. “ ‘I’ve got to remain calm. . . . ‘ I just stayed there and prayed and waited for someone to find me.”

Watched Floating Objects

To keep herself occupied, she watched lipsticks, receipts and candy bars that had floated out of her purse bob in the water around her head.

Meanwhile, two workers from a nearby ranch had noticed the skid marks leading to the river and spotted the rear tires of the car jutting from the water.

One of the men plunged into the water and talked with Urioste while the other went for help.

“The car started going further into the water,” Urioste said. “My air pocket got smaller and I started swallowing water and I started to panic. Then I thought that if I have to hold my breath for a couple of minutes, I can do it. At least help was there.”

“My mouth by that time was in the water. I closed my mouth . . . and kept on praying.”

Her husband, Maguine, a volunteer firefighter, helped in the rescue but learned only later that the survivor was his wife.