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Letter to the editor

3 swim to driver's rescue

The sedan sank by the second. Could they free him?

By ANNE LINDBERG, Times Staff Writer
Published August 26, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Atoyia Deans] No one saw the Mercury crash into the pond at 1400 Gandy Blvd. But when bystanders saw it half-submerged, they jumped in.

ST. PETERSBURG - Joe Willinger was headed back to work Saturday after a fish sandwich at McDonald's when he passed a bunch of people standing around a retention pond.

"I saw this car half-submerged," Willinger said. "I thought, let's go back and see what's going on."

He hopped out of his pickup truck and asked if anyone was in the car. The answer was yes.

Willinger, 51, yanked off his shirt and shoes and jumped into the greenish brown water. He swam to the car and got one of the rear doors open.

"The car was submerging rather quickly," Willinger said.

He tried to pull the driver over the seat and out the rear door, but he couldn't lift the man.

By then, two other men had swum out to the car, and one of them managed to open the front passenger door. Willinger started pulling the driver through.

It was difficult: The man still had his seat belt fastened, and, once free from that, he became stuck behind the wheel.

"He was a big man," Willinger said, estimating the driver's weight at between 350 and 400 pounds.

Just as the car sank, Willinger got the driver free.

"I swam to shore with him," Willinger said. "He was very disoriented."

The two sat on the bank of the retention pond until St. Petersburg firefighters arrived.

As the driver lay on a stretcher, he told Willinger, "Dude, thank you so much, you're my hero."

The driver, whose name was not released, was taken to Northside Hospital. He was conscious, though a little confused, and seemed to have no life-threatening injuries, said Lt. Rosylan Maxwell of St. Petersburg Fire Rescue.

Apparently, no one witnessed the accident, and details were sketchy Saturday. But it appeared that the man was driving west on Gandy Boulevard just before 4 p.m. when he attempted a left turn into the Windjammer condominiums, 1400 Gandy Blvd.

He overshot the entry to the driveway, missed one pine tree and plowed through some landscaping. He hit another pine tree with the right front corner of his car, tearing off an approximately 2-foot-long strip of bark before coming to rest in the retention pond.

No skid marks were visible.

Firefighters from St. Petersburg Station 11, the city's only maritime rescue unit, were called to the scene. They donned rubber suits and air tanks to hook tow chains to the 1997 gray Mercury, which was under 5 to 6 feet of water.

As the car was pulled from the pond, debris floated from the open trunk - a spare tire, a white plastic trash can, a bright yellow plastic container.

When the car was back on land, two St. Petersburg police officers put on blue plastic gloves and pawed through the contents. One officer removed a green bottle with a yellowish gold label and no top. He poured the contents onto the driveway.

An officer said police had not determined whether alcohol was involved.

[Last modified August 25, 2007, 22:53:51]