GLOCESTER, R.I. (WPRI) — Dailyn Giorgio considers herself lucky.

The Glocester resident found herself caught in a tornado on her way to work Friday morning — and lived to tell the tale.

Giorgio tells 12 News she decided to take her husband’s Dodge Charger instead of her own vehicle as a severe storm moved across the state.

“I had never driven it before,” Giorgio said, adding that she was initially apprehensive about borrowing the sedan.

Giorgio had just stopped to grab a coffee at a nearby gas station when she received a notification on her phone warning of a possible tornado. She decided to wait for the rain to pass before continuing her commute to Warwick.

“The rain was horrendous,” she recalled.

It wasn’t until Giorgio hopped onto I-295 South that she realized the worst of the storm wasn’t over, and while fighting the torrential downpours and whipping winds, she noticed something unusual.

“I looked to my right and I saw a cluster of trees that were violently being blown around,” Giorgio said. “There was debris in the air that was just floating there … and before I could even think, I saw [a tornado] come out of the woods and right at me.”

WATCH: Tornado crosses highway in Johnston (Story continues below.)

Giorgio said she had cars on either side of her on the highway and couldn’t move out of the tornado’s path.

“It hit the car,” she said. “It felt like I had hit a wall.”

The car began to shake, and Giorgio said she didn’t even realize she was being lifted off of the ground.

“In my mind, I thought I was rolling,” she recalled. “But I was spinning. You lose all concept of direction and where you are.”

Giorgio said the car’s airbags deployed upon impact.

“The car saved my life,” she said. “I was in a cocoon of air bags.”

Giorgio’s car was tossed several feet down the highway before crashing to the ground. That’s when an off-duty firefighter and AAA driver pulled over and rushed to her side.

“They pulled me out of the car,” Giorgio recalled. “I was really grateful.”

The National Weather Service later confirmed that a tornado touched down in Scituate, Johnston and North Providence. It first formed as an EF-2 tornado in Scituate, but weakened into an EF-1 by the time it reached I-295 in Johnston.

“I was absolutely terrified. I just kept praying, ‘Please, this is not the way I want to go out,'” Giorgio said. “Thankfully, I was in a very safe car … If I had been in my SUV, I probably would’ve been thrown a lot further.”

Giorgio said other than a minor concussion and whiplash, she was relatively unscathed.

“It was divine intervention,” she said. “I got out of it alive.”