Fontana officer uses patrol car to stop runaway 1947 Chevy Suburban. Hear the dramatic 911 call

Mechanical gremlins are bound to pop up with classic cars.

Ideally not while traveling at speed on a busy Southern California road that's under construction.

That kind of unfortunate timing struck Sunday morning when Alexis Pritchard was driving her 1947 Chevy Suburban, a fixer-upper project with her grandfather. Pritchard had just left a fuel station in Fontana in the handsome vintage SUV and was about to enter the 15 Freeway with her dog along for the ride when she pressed the brake pedal.

In a heart-pounding moment, the pedal sank to the floor every time she pumped the brakes. Audio from her 911 call -- likely a first for the dispatcher -- captured the dramatic events that unfolded on Sierra Avenue in Fontana.

"I'm in a 1947 Chevy Suburban, and I can't brake, and I'm running all these red lights and I don't know what to do," Pritchard told the dispatcher. "How am I going to stop this thing? Oh my God, I'm freaking out."

Pritchard threw the transmission into its lowest gear and shut off the engine.

"And I'm still coasting, you know, car off and picking up speed pretty quick," Pritchard told NBCLA.

The 911 dispatcher tried to troubleshoot as the truck rolled on in heavy traffic.

"Does it have an emergency brake?"

"No it doesn't," Pritchard responded. "The emergency brake doesn't work."

The 911 audio captured Pritchard shouting to another driver and asking whether they could turn on their flashing emergency tail-lights.

Officer Albert Charco was dispatched to help. The Chevy was coasting at about 30 mph when he spotted the shiny green SUV about to enter a construction zone.

"The only thing I could think of at the time was, 'All right, I'm going to use my vehicle to stop this vehicle,'" Charco said. "You know, and pray for the best."

Charco maneuvered his cruiser in front of the Suburban and gradually began slowing down.

"When he said, 'Hold on,' I held onto my dog, I held onto my steering wheel, and I just rammed into the back of him," Pritchard said.

Her relief was caught on the 911 audio when she repeatedly exclaimed, "Oh my God! Oh my God!"

The dispatcher asked whether she was ok. She replied that she was fine, her adrenaline still running high.

"(The officer) opens the door for me, and I get out," Pritchard said. "I'm balling my eyes out, and the first thing he does is give me a hug."

Pritchard said her guardian angels -- her father died in 2021, her brother died a year later -- were looking over her.

"They had to have been with me," Pritchard said. "I was not by myself that day, I know I wasn't," she said.

The Suburban's damaged front end will need some work, but that will just be another chapter to this old Chevy's story.