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78-year-old drives car into lake

By THOMAS LAKE
Published December 7, 2006

	Pasco Sheriff's Office divers help tow Leonard Stefniak's car out of the lake at the Carlton Arms apartment complex Wednesday morning. Stefaniak was taken to Morton Plant North Bay Hospital, where his condition was unknown Wednesday night.
[Times photo: Julia Kumari Drapkin]

NEW PORT RICHEY - Crash, splash. A silver sedan plunged into Lake Magnolia. The water was cold, the driver old. Now was the time to shatter glass.

The man needed deliverance, but the doors were locked. His saviors would have to break the windows. And as the car sank into the dark green depths, they used all available tools.

The apartment manager battered the glass with his flesh and bone.

A woman swam toward the wreck with a cantaloupe-sized rock.

Then came the professionals with a utility knife and a heavy piece of steel.

Could they pull him free before time ran out?

* * *

Leonard Stefaniak is 78. The neighbors said he had knee surgery a few years ago, and his wife did most of the driving after that. But his wife died a few weeks ago, and he decided to try again.

About 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, at the Carlton Arms apartment complex off Rowan Road, under a bright sky dusted with powdered-sugar clouds, Stefaniak got in his Buick Century, headed on an unknown errand.

Then something went very wrong. The authorities couldn't say for sure why Stefaniak lost control, but spokesmen for the Pasco County Sheriff's Office said he was known to take medication for epilepsy. His car jumped a curb, grazed a brick building, flattened a wooden bench and careened into the lake.

Kelly Clarke lives on the other side. She was e-mailing her boyfriend when she heard the splash. Fearing someone had been attacked by an alligator, she ran outside with the best weapon she had: a bow and arrow.

She saw the car, perhaps 100 feet from shore. She kicked off her shoes and picked up a rock, thinking she would bash the window. But after she'd swam about halfway there, she turned back, exhausted.

She saw that apartment manager Allan Smith was already there, soaked with blood. Clarke said Smith cut himself trying break the windows. He was later treated and released from a local hospital.

The car sank to the bottom of the lake, perhaps 10 feet below the surface.

* * *

The first Fire Rescue truck arrived at 10:47 a.m., said Battalion Chief Albert Dennison. Firefighters swam to the wreck, diving under to try to free Stefaniak. The utility knife didn't work. They needed something heavier.

Firefighter John Quisenberry grabbed a Halligan bar, an all-purpose firefighter's tool made of solid steel nearly 3 feet long with a sharp prong on one end. The firefighters took turns holding it as they swam to the car.

"You don't realize how heavy that Halligan is until you swim with it," Quisenberry said.

Sheriff's Deputy Will Ferguson got there a minute or two later. He's a member of the agency's dive team. He threw off his gun belt, put on his mask and fins and swam to the submerged car. By this time, other rescuers had managed to puncture the windows.

Stefaniak was trapped between the seats. Ferguson grabbed him and wrestled him out the back door. They towed him to shore with a rescue line.

Stefaniak wasn't breathing. Fire Rescue Capt. George Truell knelt to give him CPR. He showed signs of life.

They rushed him to Morton Plant North Bay Hospital, where a sheriff's spokesman said he was initially in serious condition. His condition was not known Wednesday night.

"Oh my God," Clarke said after the rescue. "Please let this man live."

Times researcher Angie Drobnic Holan contributed to this report. Thomas Lake can be reached at tlake@sptimes.com or 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6245.

[Last modified December 6, 2006, 22:53:25]