A woman in labour rescued by boat when her home and street flooded said after all that she could not really face trying a water birth.

Briar Coles, 32, tried to get to the hospital but when her fiance, personal trainer Barry Pitts, looked in their car, water was up to the steering wheel.

Water gushed rapidly into Cecil Close in the early hours of Saturday, after a water main burst in Hook Road and caused damage to about 40 homes.

She said: "We started putting towels down to see if we could do anything to prevent it coming in to the house. It got to a point when it was about 3.30am it started coming into the house.

"Once it started coming into the house and we weren't sure about getting out it was a bit more scary and it was bad timing - I'd spent so long getting the house ready for the new baby."

Surrey Comet:

Water levels rose to halfway up residents' cars

The couple, who have a 22-month-old daughter, became concerned they would be unable to leave the house, and called for help.

Physiotherapist Ms Cole said: "Within about five minutes there was a police officer at the door. He'd walked all the way down through the water, and there was an ambulance waiting at the end of the road."

Surrey Comet:

The boat brought to take Ms Cole to the waiting ambulance

The London Fire Brigade brought two boats, one full of sandbags for the flooded houses, and another to transport Ms Coles and her fiancee. They were taken right up to the ambulance and "stepped off the inflatable into the ambulance".

After making it along the 'river' created in the road, she eventually got to hospital and gave birth to a daughter, Andreya, weighing 9lbs 6ozs.

She added: "She's great, really good, very chilled despite all the chaos around her. She's got a great birth story - we need to keep all the articles."

Surrey Comet:

Ariana meeting baby Andreya

Ms Coles had been planning to have a water birth, but changed her mind and joked: "I think I'd been put off to be honest, I didn't really feel like going in the water again."

​​She had gone into labour the previous day, Friday, April 22, but was not ready to go to hospital so stayed at home.

She woke at about 1.30am on Saturday morning to missed calls from a neighbour, who was desperately trying to tell her the small road was rapidly filling with water.

She said: "I had a couple of missed calls from one of my neighbours so got up and looked outside and I heard an alarm.

"I thought it was my fiancée's bike being stolen as that has happened around this area.

"All of the rest of the neighbours were outside taking pictures and I didn't really notice any water on the ground or anything so rang the neighbour back.

"And she's like, 'Just to let you know our street's flooded and the garden's flooded and it's about to go into our houses."

Surrey Comet:

Mr Pitts and his newborn daughter

The family have lived in Cecil Close for about five years, and plan to move in with Mr Pitts' mother until they can return to their home - which could be in about three months time.

She praised the emergency services who dealt with the flood and said: "We can't fault the rescue services, they were fantastic."