Topeka ? Helen Foster never learned her rescuer’s name, never got to thank him for saving her life.

If she’s right about the hero’s identity, she never will.

Foster, 79, of Topeka, was pulled through her car window Saturday night on the flooded Kansas Turnpike and carried to high ground. She believes her rescuer was Albert Larsen, 31, of Fort Worth, Texas, who was subsequently washed away and lost his life.

Larsen and Foster were in two of the seven vehicles swept off the highway south of Emporia by the flash flood. Also killed in the floodwaters were a Liberty, Mo., woman and her four young children.

“When I saw what had happened to me I said, ‘Please, God, help me. I don’t know what to do,”‘ Foster said Wednesday. “I couldn’t have gotten out the window myself. Someone had to pull me out.”

Now, Foster hopes to contact Larsen’s widow to offer words of comfort.

“I just hope we can find her, because I lost my husband suddenly and it’s a terrible tragedy. This is terrible for her,” Foster said. Her husband, Dr. Charles G. Foster, died in 1983.

Others who were on the highway reported seeing Larsen lead rescue efforts.

Ryan Lane, 24, of Lawrence, said he abandoned his car and waded through waist-deep water to assist a family of three. He then joined another man — who he believes was Larsen — to help an elderly woman to safety, then went to aid another elderly woman and two teenage girls.

Whether Foster is right that it was Larsen who saved her, she recalls vividly the events of what began as a drive home from a visit to relatives in Wichita.

Foster said she had been driving north on Interstate 35 at 40 mph with her flashers blinking because of the heavy rain. There was no warning of the flood.

“All of a sudden my car was floating,” Foster said. “I was in a lake of water and the car was filling up rapidly. It was up to my chest and a man came over to the car. He was standing in deep water and knocked on the window and said, ‘Open your window quick. I’ve got to get you out. You’re going to lose your car and yourself.”‘

“He got me out the window and carried me and it was … the wind! And the rain! And the depth of the water were fearsome. I mean, he almost dropped me a couple of times because of what he was fighting — the wind and the water.

“He carried me to high ground and I said, ‘What’s your name? I want to thank you! I want to thank you! What’s your name?’

“He said, ‘I got you out of the car, and that’s all that matters.'”