A video released Monday by the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office shows how meticulously crews had to work earlier this month to remove a car and two bodies trapped inside it from the frothing Kings River.

The car, a red Hyundai Sonata, had plummeted 500 feet after plowing through a guardrail on Highway 180 on July 26, authorities said. Since then, the smashed vehicle has rested on a pile of boulders amid raging waters.

Search-and-rescue crews from the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office pulled the sedan to the riverbank Sept. 1, then retrieved the bodies of University of South Florida exchange students Pakapol Chairatnathrongporn, 28, and Thiwadee Saengsuriyarit, 24, from the car.

The video shows just how perilous the operation was and why it took more than a month to get underway.

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