Amazing escape of bog ordeal driver

The woman's car had sunk in freezing waters

An Irish driver has described finding a woman who had been trapped for 34 hours in her overturned car, submerged in a peat bog.

You could see the back bumper and number plate but the front bumper was submerged in water and the rest of the car was submerged in water

Chaim Factor

Lisa Landau was being treated in Loughlinstown hospital for pneumonia after her ordeal, which began on Saturday night.

Ms Landau was "freezing and in a bad condition" by the time she was saved, said a police spokesman.

The man who found her, Chaim Factor, said he went to investigate after noticing that bark had been knocked from a tree near Ashford in County Wicklow.

Her car had left the road in poor weather, turned over and partially sunk in the bog.

Ms Landau's mobile phone was damaged by water and stopped working, removing her last hope of raising the alarm.

She remained trapped until Mr Factor's curiosity was aroused 34 hours later.

Mr Factor described on Irish radio how he parked his car, climbed onto a bank and spotted what little was still visible of her car.

"There was only the undercarriage of the car," he said.

Police called

"You could see the back bumper and number plate but the front bumper was submerged in water and the rest of the car was submerged in water."

Mr Factor discovered the driver's door and window had not been opened and called the police, assuming that the driver was unconscious or dead.

But after the car was pulled from the bog, he saw that Ms Landau was propping herself up, with her head in the footwell beside the accelerator.

"She was getting air, I presume, through the hole where the pedal goes out into the water," he said.

English-born Ms Landau, who has lived in Ireland for 11 years, is a horse-riding instructor and showjumper.