"Oi, don't do it!"
Nikki Bebbington is shouting furiously at a driver about to enter floodwater out the front of her rural property at Corndale on the New South Wales North Coast.
"Oi, go back," she yells.
The driver enters the water anyway, and it becomes the second flood rescue Nikki is involved with that day.
Driver trapped
Nikki, her husband and a neighbour had already saved a life on Tuesday.
Chris Barry, 63, took his ute into the flood, thinking that a snorkel fitted to his engine and 4-wheel-drive would be enough to get through.
It wasn't.
The water was deeper and stronger than he realised.
The ute went under and the pressure from the torrent meant Chris couldn't open the doors to escape.
"The car floated out into the paddock, started to tip its nose down, and I couldn't open the door or wind the windows down because I suppose everything had shorted out," he says.
"I would have had only minutes before I went under, before I drowned in it."
Screams alerted Nikki to the danger.
Her husband Simon got a second kayak while a neighbour, Dave, swam out to the car from the other side of the road.
Rings wife to say goodbye
Chris Barry says he felt calm inside the car, even though he realised he was in big trouble.
He rang the police but knew they wouldn't get there in time so he rang his wife to say goodbye.
When help arrived, Chris says it was sheer relief.
"As soon as I heard the first thump on the window, I thought, 'At last, someone's here to help me.'"
Together, Chris and Dave managed to smash the driver's side window to get him out and they waited shoulder deep in the back of the ute for the kayaks.
Nikki's husband Simon paddled Chris to safety and then Nikki went back for her neighbour.
She said Chris was pretty embarrassed when it was all over.
"He probably should have known better," Nikki says, "but they misjudge how high the water is".
Few turn back
Just 2 per cent of people turn around when confronted with flooded roads, according to a national survey.
That is despite warnings from the State Emergency Service (SES) that "if it's flooded, forget it".
Men and drivers of larger vehicles are most likely to take drive into floodwater, according to national research by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Coperative Research Centre.
Chris Barry was trying to get to the airport to pick up his daughter, but concedes that even though he has been through plenty of emergencies, he doesn't have much experience driving in floodwater.
"Have something that you know will break a window, like a hammer."
