A Missouri woman says that prayer saved her life after being trapped inside a wrecked car for eight hours.

Cassandra Wiggins was traveling to work Thursday morning when her car hydroplaned, sliding across the road and down an embankment.  The car was 100 feet below the roadway but completely out of sight to the passing cars.

The 39-year-old lost consciousness during the wreck due to a blow to the head.  The woman was reported missing when her employers called Wiggins’ mother saying she had not arrived for work.

“It’s a mother’s gut and the Holy Spirit that told me that there was something seriously wrong,” Anita Finney told KSHB-TV. “And by that point, I could just start praying that the Lord would save her until I found her.”

Wiggins regained consciousness around 3 p.m. and was able to use her foot to reach her cell phone.  It took fire department personnel over two hours to free her from the crumpled car.  She suffered a severe hip injury that required surgery and will need rehab to learn to walk again.

“She said, ‘Daddy, I thought at first I was going to die, then I just kept praying,’” her father, Robert Wiggins, told KCTV News. “That’s what we taught Cass from early childhood, and that’s what she did and the Lord answered her prayer. So we’re grateful.  We’re thankful for the firemen that came and helped her up that hill,” he added. “I don’t see how they got up it; that hill was so long.”