A brave woman was left bloodied and bruised following a dramatic solo-rescue effort in one of the worst storms to hit Brisbane in decades.
Up to 90,000 homes in Australia's third-largest city were left without power when 140km/h winds, rain and huge hailstones cut lines, flooded streets and injured a dozen people.
The 'apocalyptic' storm struck during the Thursday afternoon rush hour, trapping commuters for hours in stalled electric trains.
One Brisbane resident, Danni Suriano, risked her life battling the worst of the weather to save a man who had been knocked out by a gigantic hailstone.
She had been driving her car through the storm when she spotted the man, who had passed out in his vehicle.
“Saved a 40-year-old man's life and got smashed with hail myself as I dragged him to my car," she wrote on Facebook.
“I had to run 15 metres to grab this guy and drag his limp body on my own as he was hit in the head with hail, massive gash on his head, and the cars right next to him just looked out of their windows.
“Got him into the car, turned him on his side and just laid over him because the back windscreen was smashed and we were still getting pelted!
“Ambulance said he’d probably be dead if I hadn’t got his tongue out of his throat."
She posted the details of her dramatic rescue on Facebook, where it has received almost 70,000 likes.
Shrugging off the praise, she said: “I wanted people to think, ‘What if that was someone I love? What if that was my mum, my dad, my brother, my sister?’
"What if that was your child?”
A number of people - including a pregnant woman - also found themselves trapped in a bus station elevator for over an hour.
News broadcasts showed high-rise windows smashed, light planes flipped upside-down on an airfield and cars almost completely submerged in flooded streets.
Queensland state premier Campbell Newman described the storm as the worst to hit the city of 2.2million people since 1985.
He said 12 people had been injured. The army was called in to help emergency crews remove fallen trees.
