(CNN) -- With motor fluid spraying their faces and the weight of a car numbing their bodies, two Nevada college students struggled to stay calm after a drunk driver allegedly tore into their home, ripping them from their slumber.

Kristin Palmer and Trent Wood were asleep in their home last week when a motorist allegedly drove into their bedroom around 4 a.m., mistakenly believing it was his ex-girlfriend's home.

The University of Nevada students spent almost an hour pinned between the car and their bed while emergency workers battled furiously to free them.

Somehow, the two left the scene with relatively minor scrapes and burns -- and a new lease on life, Wood said.

"When you experience something like that there's no limits anymore, you can try to do whatever you want to do," Wood told HLN's Mike Galanos. "We feel like we have more of a purpose, like we were meant to live."

Authorities say the motorist was drunk when he drove into the couple's home in Sparks, mistakenly believing it was the home of his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend.

Eric Cross is accused of drunken driving, battery with a deadly weapon, possession of a stolen vehicle, driving without a license and careless driving for his alleged role in the crash, which occurred October 21, according to the Washoe County Sheriff's Office.

Initially, Woods struggled to comprehend what had happened to him after being abruptly torn from his slumber.

"I thought the roof caved in from an earthquake because it's an old house," Woods said.

Then, his girlfriend began screaming and parts of the car came into focus, helping Woods to groggily piece the scene together,

"I could see the tire to the right side and I was like, there's a car on top of me right now," he said. "That was really hard to get through my head."

As fluid poured from the car, burning Palmer's face, the couple feared that the car might explode with them underneath, he said.

Woods credited the slackness of the bed for preventing their legs from breaking altogether as the weight of the car pinned his girlfriend's entire body and his lower half to the bed.

"She was screaming really badly because I could actually move above my chest and neck, but she couldn't move anything," he said.

The couple calmed down somewhat after emergency workers arrived at the scene, using chainsaws to rip through the wall, Wood said.

About 42 minutes later, they had lifted the car enough to let the couple wiggle out from underneath it without it crushing their lower bodies.

"When the car was lifted and you could see blood circulating back through my legs, that was probably the happiest moment of my life: Yes! I'm not paralyzed," he said.

"I was so happy, hugging everyone and making sure Kristin was all right," he said. "I was just real happy to get out of there."

The couple is accepting donations through the Bank of America to replace items lost in the incident.

HLN's Amanda Sloane contributed to this report.