When 88-year-old Ethel Mae Schneider made her way home from morning mass on May 18, she spotted the newspaper in her driveway, and leaned out of her car to pick it up.

As she tilted herself out the door, her foot accidentally pressed on the accelerator and drove her gray Oldsmobile straight through her garage door, and out the back wall.

"It was then that I heard the sizzle," said Schneider, who survived the event without any injuries.

Schneider had severed a gas pipe running behind the back wall of her garage, and the fumes were pouring out into the air.

I knew I had to get out," she said. "But I couldn't open either front door."

The elderly woman quickly maneuvered her way between the two front seats and into the back of the car. From there she was able to exit from a rear door and move to safety.

"After I was out, I saw four police cars and two ambulances," she said.

Her neighbor had already called 911 to report her crash and called again about the gas leak.

"It's amazing that no one was hurt," said her son Ken, who rushed to the house to check on his mother. "She was trapped in the car, and gas was rising into the air around her."

"I didn't know how much danger I was in until people told me," Ethel Mae said.

Since gas was present in the air, the police department had to evacuate about 11 houses in vicinity of the accident, said Sgt. Bill Tait of the Santa Clara County Sheriff Department's West Valley division.

"The evacuation only lasted 30 minutes," he said. "PG&E did a good job getting it capped."

"It was sealed relatively quickly," said Jeff Smith, spokesperson for PG&E.

"All gas spills are serious," he said. "But this one was not too dangerous."

This was not the first event to bring media attention to the Schneider household. Ethel Mae remembers the day 20 years ago when her late husband, Bill, rescued a child from drowning.

"He heard a cry for help from the neighbor's house, and he went," Schneider recalls.

"The child had fallen into a pool, and Bill rescued it and preformed resuscitation," she said.

As a member of the Kiwanis Club, Bill was recognized for his action that day.

Bill received media attention again when he underwent an operation for colon cancer at the same that former president Ronald Reagan received the procedure.

Schneider said her husband's recovery from the operation was tracked by the Cupertino Courier and compared to the president's.

Considering the life threatening events that have occurred so close to her home, Schneider said, "It's important that people be aware of the dangers around them."

In retrospect, Schnieder said she was glad she went to church that day. "God was with me," she said with a smile.