TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — On most nights, New Jersey State Trooper Daniel Cunning would feel good about saving someone's life.
But this night wasn't like other nights, as a hurricane made landfall in New Jersey for only the third time in two centuries.
With ferocious winds and stinging rain, Cunning would save a life and lose a life in the darkness on the same flooded road, marking Hurricane Irene's first reported death and a dramatic rescue in the state.
"He did a very heroic thing," said State Police spokesman Stephen Jones. "And he still doesn't feel good about it."
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Celena Sylvestri, 20, from Quinton was driving along Route 40 just before 1 a.m. Sunday. The small stream that ran along the road in Pilesgrove had swollen so large that by the time she reached the Kings Highway crossroad, police said, she had driven into it.
First she called her boyfriend then used her mobile phone to call 911. She told police the water inside her Honda Accord was up to her neck.
Cunning was one of three troopers and a fire truck crew to rush to the scene, which was just down the road on Route 40.
"The conditions were horrendous, visibility was almost zero," he recalled. "I could see 150 yards of water rushing across the road."
He looked around frantically. Nothing. So he went down to the next crossroad, hoping he might catch her downstream.
"Maybe I'll get lucky and she'll pop up," he thought. "I was looking for a person, or vehicle, or anything at that point."
He saw nothing.
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On the other side of Route 40, 68-year-old James Troy was about to make the same mistake as Sylvestri as he drove into the rushing water. His truck quickly washed down into woods, which by then had become a river, and he washed out of the truck.
As Cunning looked for the young woman, the report came in about a man in the water, who by then was clinging to a tree.
Cunning, a former lifeguard, ran back to the fire truck, tied a 70-foot rope to his waist, and began wading into the water. Soon, he was up to his waist.
"I thought it was going to knock me down," the 6-foot-3 trooper said.
He called out, and he heard an answer.
Once they spotted Troy, Cunning said they tried to throw him a life preserver. It didn't work. So the fire truck drove farther into the water, with Cunning still attached, and the former lifeguard swam to rescue Troy.
After bringing the older man to dry pavement, Cunning went back in to look for the young woman; the rope was still tied to his waist and firetruck.
"They let me swim down river the length of the rope, but I couldn't see anything. Then," he said with a sigh, "they called to me and said that I was literally at the end of my rope."
At dawn, a swift-water rescue diver was brought in and located Sylvestri's car, submerged below four feet of water. Her body was recovered and by the afternoon, the water had receded back enough that a tow truck could reach it.
"There was no way they could ever see that car," Jones said. "But it wasn't because they didn't try."
