Woman Recalls 'Gasping for Air and Losing Consciousness' Alongside Neighbor in Ocean to Survive Hawaii Fires

"When our faces would touch the water, it would stir us back up," says Annelise Cochran, who worked together with a neighbor to survive

A Maui woman and her neighbor worked together to survive the deadly Hawaii fires — and help as many others as they could.

Annelise Cochran couldn’t believe the intense winds outside her Lahaina apartment Tuesday. After jumping into the shower around 4:00 p.m. local time, she thought she heard sirens before realizing it was the sound of smoke alarms going off in unison.

“There was smoke billowing, like really crazy plumes of smoke coming down the mountain,” says Cochran, 30, who works for the Pacific Whale Foundation.

Cochran, who hadn't received any emergency text warning, went back to her apartment building where her neighbors were talking about evacuating. One of her upstairs neighbors, Edna, was talking to Freeman, an elderly man who lived next door. “He was very nervous to leave. He really wanted to stay at home, and Edna and I just really wouldn't take that for an answer,” Cochran tells PEOPLE. “We couldn't leave him behind. There was no way."

Then, she saw flames about a block away.

"I screamed to everybody, "Hey guys, there's fire. I see the fire. It's over here. We have to go. It's time. The fire is here,"" she remembers.

Related: Lahaina Man Recounts Race Through a Wall of Fire That Leveled the Hawaiian Tourist Town

Cochran ran inside to grab a few items and by the time she came back, the fire had crossed the parking lot and a giant ember came crashing toward them.

“It was the size of a boulder — it was like four or five footballs smashed together in size," she says. "It just immediately caught and everything started burning.”

She urged Edna and Freeman to get into her car, but they wanted to walk so the group decided to try to head towards the ocean. “We knew that you can avoid fire with water,” Cochran says.

It was pitch black as Cochran drove through the smoke and there were cars everywhere.

“Everybody stopped their cars,” she says. "There was fire on both sides of the street that I was on, so it was closing in on us.”

“That's when I think it really struck me that, "This is about to go really, really south for me and a lot of people,” she adds.

Related: How to Help Hawaii Wildfire Victims, Including Ways to Donate

When she parked her car, buildings on either side were burning. She also spotted her neighbors, Edna and Freeman, and invited them to come sit inside her car and breath the less smokey air. After they refused, she parked her car and went to help them climb over the big rock wall to the ocean.

“We went down and wet our clothes, and covered our mouths and face, and then started encouraging other people around us to do the same," she says. "We saw people getting onto rafts and just drifting out to sea. I encouraged people to try to at least stay close to the shore because it's going to be dark soon and there's smoke on the water.”

Around 5 p.m., they got into the water because the embers were burning their clothes and skin.

“The cars started to explode very, very badly at that point. They went off one at a time, and that's when I think the fire got deadly for us, honestly," she says. "The heat that came off the cars when it exploded was immense. So most of us that were out there have burns on our faces."

She turned to talk to her neighbor, Edna, and realized she couldn’t speak above a whisper.

“We just held each other's hands, and we sat silently,” she says. “We couldn't breathe. We were gasping for air and losing consciousness."

"When our faces would touch the water, it would stir us back up," she recalls. "I remember every time I would come and go from consciousness, I would tap Edna, and I would say, 'Are you awake? Are you awake? Stay awake,' and she would do the same for me. We would just keep telling each other to stay awake.”

When the smoke cleared, they saw their elderly neighbor, Freeman, slumped against the wall. “I knew he hadn't made it when I looked at him,” she says. “It was devastating.”

Related: Hawaii Gov. Josh Green Confirms 99 Dead in Maui Wildfires: 'Tragedy Beyond Tragedy'

In the water, hypothermia began to set in.

“We were shaking in the water. So Edna and I would hold each other, and put our backs against one another, or breathe on each other's backs to stay warm,” she says. “When it got really, really bad, we would climb up the rock wall, and we would actually go back towards the fire, knowing that we were going to get burned on the way. But it was the only way that we could warm our bodies up."

Even as her skin got burned, she remembers feeling grateful.

“I thought about the people in the water that didn't even have a choice to find a way to get warm. I can't imagine what it would feel like to freeze to death in a fire. It's heart-wrenching,” she says.

Related: After Losing Home, Maui First Responder Is Hoping to Find Missing Victims in the Ocean (Exclusive)

As the fires died down, she realized she was going to make it. Finally, she was able to take out her cell phone and call 911. She also texted her mom that she was alive.

Around 11 p.m., she started to see Coast Guard rescue boats pulling people out of the water. And a couple minutes after flashing SOS in Morse Code towards a fire truck, "guys came running out and came down to get us," she says.

Then, at 3:38 a.m., she texted her mother that she had made it to the shelter.

“I've just been feeling so grateful that I grew up with an Eagle Scout dad. We were outdoors people. I worked on a boat. I know the ocean extraordinarily well,” she says. “My dad passed away when I was younger. He's my guardian angel, he's always been. One of the ember burns that I have on my knee is a perfect heart. It's a little heart burn.”

Her apartment building and all her belongings are gone. “There’s nothing there,” she says. Still, she says, “I feel blessed.”

A GoFundMe has been established for her to help her rebuild.

“The community is going above and beyond with donations. Our shelter can't even store all of the donations that we're getting. I could eat 30,000 calories a day here for free with the way that they just keep pushing food on us. There's a lot of love happening,” she says. “Being in the shelter, I've never been so comfortable, honestly."

"It's so nice to wake up next to people that went through this experience, and can give you a hug, and remember they saw what you saw. Because other people, they won't always understand what that night felt like," she adds. "To be surrounded by people that understand the tragedy, it's really healing.”

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