National Football League

Raiders trainer helps save woman

Published Jun. 22, 2012 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

Oakland Raiders assistant athletic trainer Chris Cortez recently helped save a woman from a sinking car after she skidded off the road into the Oakland estuary.

Cortez said he was driving home from an evening dinner with his wife and their neighbor, Taryn Griffin, on June 11 when they spotted a crowd helplessly watching from the roadside as a trapped driver tried to escape her half-submerged vehicle.

Both he and Griffin, who is a nurse, dived into the cold water to come to her rescue, before being joined by a third Good Samaritan.

"We finally got her to roll down her window and the car started going under," Cortez told Raiders.com. "Taryn, being the awesome swimmer that she is, dove right in and so I just went in right after her, and so did another individual."

Cortez suffered some minor injuries for his bravery, but ensured the woman was unharmed, despite her being plunged scarily under water for 15 to 20 seconds after rolling down the window.

"We fortunately got her out of there without a scratch, which is pretty amazing," he added. "Nobody got hurt."