By Sharon Stevens (KSDK) -- One day after calling for help from her submerged car, a St. Charles County woman met the people she said saved her life. Erica Strickland was stranded on the roof of her flooded car early Monday morning. She was returning from the drugstore with medicine for her sick husband around 5:30 a.m. It was too dark to tell if the water in front of her on Hoff Road was a puddle or a lake. She called 911 and spoke to operator Becky Lenk, who works for the Lake St. Louis Fire Protection District. Lenk became Strickland's lifeline for the next 50 minutes as rescuers came to find her. When rescuers got to Strickland by boat, she was on top of her car with the phone on her hand, talking to Lenk. The rescuers grabbed Lenk, put a life preserver on her, and took her to dry land. Strickland suffered only a mild case of hypothermia. She was back at work at Progress Elementary School in St. Peters on Tuesday. After school, she met Lenk for the first time and some of the other fire department emergency workers. She thanked them all for saving her life.

KSDK