When she saw "Titanic" in December, Suzana Piamenta had no idea that within a few months she would be surrounded by frigid, swirling water as she screamed for life and held her yapping dog above her head. And just as in the movie, she said, there were no lifeboats around.

- New York Times April 1, 1998

In a death-defying escape straight out of the blockbuster film "Titanic," a terrified woman and her dog were rescued yesterday from a stuck elevator fast filling with ice-cold water in the basement of a Manhattan high-rise.

- New York Daily News, April 1, 1998

Her screams were finally heard by her husband, who sensed something was wrong because his phone and hot water weren't working - and his wife hadn't returned to their 18th-floor apartment. He raced down 18 flights of stairs and into the basement, where the water had risen more than 5 feet.

"She was screaming like she was about to die," said Jack Piamenta, a former paratrooper in the Israeli army, "and my dog was scratching the door like crazy."

- New York Post

"I started banging on the elevator door the moment it fell," she said. "I was pressing 18 to see if it would go up and my dog was scratching at the door. Then I saw water creeping in and I started to panic."

Chloe did, too, and as soon as the cold water hit her paws, the dog scrambled into Mrs. Piamenta's arms. She was busy pushing the elevator's alarm button and screaming.

"The next thing I knew, the water was up to my waist and Chloe was scratching all over me, trying to climb up," she said. "I thought I was going to die. The water was cold and everything was getting dark."

About this time, Mrs. Piamenta's husband, Jacky, was heading off to work at their store, New York City Bagels, on Second Avenue near 64th Street. He heard the insistent ringing of the elevator bell, then recognized his wife's voice screaming for help and Chloe's distinctive bark.

"It was a very special bark, protective like an alarm, and my wife was really screaming," he said. "I thought she had been attacked by the East Side rapist."

When he reached the first floor and flung open the door to the basement, Piamenta, 36, was confronted by a room full of dirty water and no way to save his wife. He ran out to get the help of a construction crew across the street.

By then, the superintendent had opened the doors to the elevator shaft on the first floor. He and the workers jumped onto the roof and broke open the top of the elevator with crowbars, finding Mrs. Piamenta with water up to her neck and climbing, and holding a panicky Chloe well above her head.

"They pulled the dog out by his leash and then grabbed my wife," said Piamenta, whose wife is 5 feet 8 inches tall. "A few seconds later, they would have been dead."

Mrs. Piamenta was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital, where doctors gave her a tetanus shot and took X-rays before releasing her.

- New York Times

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