Hurricane Helene: FOX Weather meteorologist rescues woman from car during live recording as water rises

FOX Weather meteorologist Bob Van Dillen is being hailed as a hero after rescuing a woman from her car as waters from Hurricane Helene quickly rose during a live taping outside Atlanta on Friday.

Van Dillen joined Fox & Friends to explain why he couldn’t wait for help from first responders when he saw a woman in danger as the deadly storm wreaked havoc.

“I know we’re inundated here with all the 911 calls because there’s so many high water rescues that we’ve already documented so far… (she) called 911 and, five minutes, ten minutes, and you could hear you shouting, right? You could hear it on my live recording, really loud,” Van Dillen told Steve Doocy.

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“That’s her car right there,” Van Dillen added, with a car almost completely submerged in the background. “So I just said, ‘You know what? I realize I’m on the air with you guys, but I can’t let it go.'”

ST PETE BEACH, FLORIDA – SEPTEMBER 26: Waves from the Gulf of Mexico crash onto the coast as Hurricane Helene turns offshore in St. Pete Beach, Florida on September 26, 2024. Helene is expected to become a major hurricane later today, bringing the potential for deadly storm surge, flooding rain and devastating hurricane force winds along parts of Florida’s west coast. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The FOX Weather meteorologist “dropped everything” to help the woman get out of the situation safely.

“I took my wallet out of my pants and went in, waded in and went chest deep,” Van Dillen said when Janice Dean told him not to be humble about the heroic effort.

“You know how it goes. I was worried that there might be a nice fast current, but the current really wasn’t that bad. But I was also worried about the water temperature. The water temperature is probably about 80 degrees Celsius.” (degrees). So all of these things worked pretty well, so with that said, the water came up to about my chest,” Van Dillen added.

“She was in there, she was still tied up in her car and the water actually rose and got into the car itself, so she was almost submerged up to her neck in her own car.”

Dean then asked what would have happened if Van Dillen had not performed.

“She might have drowned,” Dean said.

“You know, I don’t know,” Van Dillen said humbly. “I said to her, ‘Okay, unfasten your seat belt,’ she unbuckled her seat belt. I said, ‘Give me your phone, give me your bags,’ then put her on my back and we walked in… She is doing well, she was in shock,” Van Dillen said.

“She was cold and shivering, so I gave her one of my shirts and she was sitting in our car, just warming up. About twenty minutes later the fire department came, saw that everything was fine and moved on to the next rescue, wherever they were. we’re going,” he continued. “Her husband just picked her up five minutes ago.”

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“It was a good deed for today,” Doocy said.

Hurricane Helene: FOX weather reporter Bob Van Dillen rescues woman from car as floodwaters rise in Atlanta. (Fox News)

Helene made landfall about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west-southwest of Perry, Florida, at 11:10 PM ET on Thursday, and impacts have been felt across the Southeast and parts of the mid-Atlantic as the monster storm moved further inland and began to weaken .

While wind remains a problem, Helene’s biggest threat remains flash flooding when heavy rains fall across the region, causing rivers and streams to burst their banks, onto roads and into communities, trapping residents.

The flash flood threat extends from the Southeast to the Mid-Atlantic, where multiple Flash Flood Emergencies were issued early Friday morning, including the first-ever Flash Flood Emergency for Atlanta.

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FOX Weather contributed to this report.