To anyone who has driven over the four-plus mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge and has felt a twinge (or crushing amount) of anxiety, this story is at once terrifying and encouraging.

A Maryland woman was driving over the bridge Friday when a tractor-trailer hit the back of her car and sent it into the Chesapeake River. In interviews about the ordeal, Morgan Lake described making the decision to fight and save herself.

“The longest part was under the water, because I had time to think I was going to die and the time to process, to change my mind and to stop fighting and to relax my body and unbuckle my seat belt to swim out,” Lake, a college student, told NBC 4. Lake escaped the sinking car and swam to some rocks.

Lake told the Post she’s in “considerable pain,” but feels “blessed to be alive.”

The bridge was the site of a deadly 2008 accident that involved a tractor-trailer and two cars. The driver of the poultry truck, which was the only vehicle to plunge into the river, died.

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