Nearly Swallowed Whole By A Brooklyn Street

The first few words of this story almost make it one of the best ledes ever:

A terrified Florida woman was nearly swallowed whole by a Brooklyn street yesterday when the cracked pavement collapsed under her SUV after a water main break, authorities said.

Then again, the story is strange enough as it is:

Nancy Batista, 46, would have been trapped in the 20-foot-deep hole in Bay Ridge if not for a pair of anonymous good Samaritans who pulled her from the mangled Ford Explorer, relatives said.

“The guy ripped the door open and said, ‘I got you!'” said Maggie Nieves, 45, after talking to her shaken sister, who was treated at Lutheran Medical Center. “She said it felt like Niagara Falls.”

As water gushed atop the Explorer at 3:35 a.m., a mystery military sergeant and a passerby rescued Batista, who, at first, was too scared to get out of the 15-foot-by-20-foot-wide hole.

“She was scared she might misjudge the step and that she would go down and nobody would be able to get her back up,” Nieves said.

Batista, who traded Flatbush for Kissimmee, Fla., a few years ago, was at a stoplight on Fourth Ave. at 73rd St. when the ground suddenly caved in.

“All she remembers is making a turn and the street opened up and swallowed her,” said Nieves, who first saw the wreck on TV when their mom in Florida called her Harlem home.

Gallons of water and a 2-foot-thick section of mud and debris collapsed along 300 feet of subway tracks below, shutting down the local R line between 36th St. and 95th St.