Seattle- A woman escaped from a car as it plunged into a Bellevue swimming pool this morning, pulled from the vehicle by firefighters who dragged her through a sunroof.

The incident took place shortly before 8 a.m. at the Racquet Club Estates condominiums in the 4400 block of 145th Avenue Northeast in the Overlake area.

Witnesses said the woman had arrived to look at a red Buick Riviera that was being sold. With the woman behind the wheel, the car careened westbound out of the parking lot, went through two chain-link fences and down a slight embankment before it came to rest in the condo swimming pool, they said.

“I heard a huge crash and then the car was in the pool,” said Jennifer Myrick, a second-floor resident in a unit overlooking the pool.

Myrick’s boyfriend, Kris Aasgaarden, leaped into the pool to try to rescue the driver, but couldn’t break the windows with the only tool available, a wooden baseball bat.

“Just before the car went under, the Fire Department arrived and used all their axes to pull her out through the sunroof,” said Aasgaarden.

According to police, the woman driving the car was 20, from Lynnwood. She somehow mistook the gas pedal for the brake, said Officer Michael Chiu, Bellevue police spokesman.

She was rescued by Redmond firefighters, who responded to the call, along with Bellevue police, and was taken to Overlake Hospital for treatment of hypothermia.

The car was removed from the pool about two hours after the incident, with two tow trucks attached to the vehicle to pull it from the water.