Dramatic Hurricane Francine rescue caught on TV news camera was 'second nature' for hero ER nurse

An emergency room nurse is being hailed as a hero after wading into the waist-deep waters brought on by Hurricane Francine and saved a driver who was moments away from being crushed by a wave of rushing water in an underpass.

The New Orleans nurse watched as the water rushed toward the driver before taking action grabbing a hammer and wading into the torrential downpour.

The heroic moment was captured from start to finish by a crew from NBC affiliate WDSU. "It's just second nature I guess, being a nurse, you just go in and get it done, right?" Miles Crawford told The Associated Press . "I just had to get to get him out of there."

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Crawford said the water was up to the driver's head and rising. Crawford told the man to move to the back of the truck's cab which gave him more room and got him away from the front of the car which was facing down and slowly being submerged.

"I wasn't really questioning whether I should do it - it was just who is going to get it done," he recalled, adding that he never caught the man's name. Francine battered Louisiana and parts of Texas as it made landfall on Wednesday.

Images captured by news crews from coastal communities showed waves from lakes, rivers and Gulf waters thrashing seawalls. Water poured into city streets in blinding downpours.

Meanwhile, high winds ripped at Oak and cypress trees causing them to bend to the awesome force.

Some footage even shows utility poles swaying dangerously. The outlet reports that the category two storm had severely weakened Thursday leaving hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without power. There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries.

It was predicted that several states including Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Georgia could see up to six inches of rain. Forecasters added that Alabama and Florida could see up to ten inches.

Flash flooding threatened cities as far away as Jackson, Mississippi; Birmingham, Alabama; Memphis, Tennessee; and Atlanta.

Many residents awoke Thursday to a large amount of water and debris. Pamela Miller , 54, told the outlet that during the storm, a tree had fallen on her home.

"It was a really loud noise, a jolt, and that's when we realized the tree had come down," she said. "Luckily it did not go through the roof."

Jeffrey Beadle, 67, also surveyed the damage around the hotel he was sheltering at — having left his home in low-lying Bayou Louis as the storm picked up. According to Beadle, he was prepared to face the worst as the town he lived in was right in the hurricane's path.

"There's nobody over on that end I can call," he said, explaining that he did not know what he would find. "Hope everything's good."

The National Hurricane Center downgraded Francine from a tropical storm to a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph. Experts say that they believe that the storm will continue to weaken and become a post-tropical cyclone.