Story highlights An elderly woman, floating face down, is pulled from Houston's floodwaters

Her rescuers are from Louisiana's Cajun Navy, helping in Houston

(CNN) The boat turned onto a Houston waterway that used to be a street, and the three volunteers from Louisiana's Cajun Navy saw what they first thought was debris, caught in the rapid current of rushing floodwaters.

They quickly realized that what they were looking at was a person, an elderly woman, floating face down as the current swept her away.

"Donnie jumped from the vessel (and) brought her up out of the water," Cajun Navy volunteer Joshua Lincoln told CNN's John Berman on "AC 360" Monday night.

"Ricky was manning the boat. He jumped in immediately also. I was at the front of the boat, leaving us in a serious current with nobody manning the motor in the back," Lincoln said, referring to his colleagues by their first names only. The New Orleans Times-Picayune identified them as Donnie Davenport and Ricky Berrigan.

"So they quickly grabbed her, started to resuscitate her, and were able to get her to breathing slowly, and then we were able to control the boat. We got her back to safety, and that's that."

Read More