A Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol officer from Vicksburg said he feels “blessed to be here” this morning after an on-duty wreck Tuesday night landed his patrol car upside down in rising water.

Master Sgt. John Minor, 40, shot windows out of his car in order to get air to breathe and call for help, and today counts only a couple of fractured ribs, some cuts and bruises among his injuries.

“I was upside down and completely under water,” said Minor this morning, recovering at home. “I could hear the water rushing in, and I had to take a deep breath as I went under. I told myself, ‘This is where you are going to die.’”

Minor was headed north on U.S. 61 South about 8:30 p.m., on his way to a wreck on Interstate 20.

“It was raining so bad out there last night,” MHSP spokesman Sgt. James Walker said. “He wasn’t even traveling at a high speed, but the vehicle hydroplaned and he lost control and went off the road.”

“Once I realized I was going to lose control, I started to brace myself,” said Minor, an 18-year MHSP veteran. “I felt the car sliding off the road, and once it began going down the embankment it started flipping and then landed roof-down in water.”

Rain and road runoff coming down the embankment started filling up the car, he said, and as the water rose, he could hear the popping and crackling of radio and other electrical systems shorting out.

With the roof of the car caved in, there was little room for him to maneuver as he tried to get a window down, reach his microphone and fumble to pop the seat belt open.

“I started running out of air,” Minor said. “Finally I found my revolver and shot out the window.”

Water was then able to run out of the vehicle, and Minor said he stuck his head out the window to take a breath. Then he began calling for help.

“I had a couple rounds left, so I fired out the back window hoping someone would hear me,” he said. The patrol car had landed in the backyard of a Marion Park home — he’s not sure whose home — and they called 911 and helped pull him out the back window.

Emergency workers took Minor to River Region Medical Center where he was treated and released.

He’ll be recuperating at home for the rest of the week, he said. Minor has a grown daughter who lives in Houston.

U.S. 61 South can be hazardous when it rains.

In May 2009, a Warren County sheriff’s deputy, Tom Wilson, 39, was killed when his cruiser hydroplaned and flipped. He had been on his way to an ambulance call. Also, in 2006, Warren County Coroner John Thomason was killed on a rainy U.S. 61 South while on his way to a call.