AUBURN – Few people would argue with the notion that if it weren’t for bad luck, Susan Berube on Friday had no luck at all.

While the 42-year-old Lewiston woman ate dinner at Pat’s Pizza on Center Street, her car slipped out of gear in the parking lot. The Saab, a convertible, came to rest at the top of a sharp embankment before the river.

A good Samaritan attempted to pull the car to safety, but his nylon strap snapped and a bad afternoon turned infinitely worse. The Saab slid down the embankment, squeezing between trees that might have stopped its descent on a better day.

The car slid all the way to the Androscoggin River where, within moments, it sank from view.

“It’s bad luck all the way around,” said Auburn police Lt. Rick Coron. “No matter how you look at it.”

The car sank at about 5 p.m. It was hours later that divers from two area companies went into the water to take a look. Because of poor visibility beneath the water, they had to use a lead boat anchor to feel around for the submerged Saab. Then they marked the spot with a bright orange buoy.

“The car is 90 feet out in 12 feet of water,” said Tim Barclay, owner of Barclay’s Diving. “It’s upside-down. That makes it real easy for us because all the attachments are facing up.”

Easy being a relative term.

Barclay and divers from Skin Diver’s Paradise and Aqua Nut Recovery had to wait for a tow truck from Greeley’s Garage to come to Pat’s Pizza with a winch and a long cable. By then, Susan Berube was long gone, but a good-sized group of diners had gathered to watch the salvage operation.

“We came for dinner and stayed to watch,” said Cindy Landry, who was at Pat’s with her children. “Why not? This is big excitement in Auburn, Maine.”

With Greeley’s on scene, Barclay and diver James Robichaud went into the water at about 9:30 p.m.

“The hard part will be swimming back with that heavy cable,” Barclay said.

They reached the sunken Saab, dove down and attached a hook. Inch-by-inch the car moved through the water toward shore. After roughly a half-hour, it poked above the surface.

“It turned over a couple times, but now it’s upside down again,” Barclay said, just before the car was pulled up the embankment, past the trees that failed to guard it earlier in the day.

The car was believed to be a complete loss. As if Berube’s luck weren’t bad enough, it turns out she had only liability insurance, which will not cover the damage or the cost of the salvage, according to police.

The identity of the man who had first tried to pull the car from the top of the embankment remained unknown. A witness said that man did not stick around for long after failing to retrieve the car.

“We heard a ‘pow!’ when the strap broke,” the witness said. “Then the car went right down to the river.”

The soaked Saab, a 1995 with leather seats, is estimated to be worth around $10,000, or roughly a thousand times the cost of a pizza with toppings at Pat’s.