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Around 5 a.m. one morning in St. Louis County, Missouri, a woman driving through the dark found the road ahead disappearing under rushing water. Her car stalled in the current, so she climbed out through a window, pulled herself onto the roof, and dialed 911 for help.

The recording survives today because Gary Allen, a former 911 dispatcher who edited Dispatch Monthly magazine and ran the website 911dispatch.com, saved it among hundreds of calls he posted as training material for other dispatchers. He filed this one under the title "Flood victim" but did not record a specific date for it.

A digital timestamp embedded in the audio file places its creation around May 29, 2008. That falls just days after a stretch of severe thunderstorms dropped three to four inches of rain an hour across the St. Louis region on May 25 and 26, 2008, according to the National Weather Service, sending creeks out of their banks and triggering 15 water rescues in neighboring St. Charles County. Whether that same storm caused the St. Louis County call could not be independently confirmed.

The recording runs nearly 14 minutes, capturing the woman and a 911 dispatcher on the line as she waited above the water for rescuers to reach her.

The National Weather Service has run its Turn Around, Don't Drown campaign since 2003 to warn drivers away from flooded roads, noting that most flood deaths involve vehicles and that as little as two feet of moving water can float a car off the pavement. Abandoning a stalled car for higher ground, such as its roof, is among the survival steps rescue agencies recommend over staying inside a flooding vehicle.

No deaths were recorded in connection with the call, and the archive that preserved it does not identify the woman, the exact date, or which agency carried out the rescue.