Diver recovers car from pond-Vehicle sinks near Golf Club Drive

By DUANE SHERRILL

Jodie Lsssiter pulls on the chain as he dives below the water Monday to hook it to a car submerged below the surface.

Braving 40-degree water temperature, a diver descended the depths of a pond near Golf Club Drive on Monday to salvage a car which ramped into the water over the weekend ‘ its occupants escaping as their vehicle sunk to the bottom.

‘The water is somewhere in the 40s today, but when we were here Friday night, there was a layer of ice out there,’ said diver Jodie Lassiter, who helped recover the 2003 Dodge Intrepid driven by Antonio Hernandez, 48, which slammed into the pond Friday night. ‘We decided it would be safer and better conditions to come back and get it today.’

According to sheriff’s reports, Hernandez was traveling west on Woodlee Creek Road when he failed to stop at a stop sign at the intersection of Golf Club Drive. The road is one being used to detour traffic from the Newtown construction zone and lawmen suspect Hernandez was not familiar with the intersection which ends in a ‘T’ with the pond straight ahead of Woodlee Creek Road.

A guard rail runs along the side of the one-acre pond but does not extend to the end of Woodlee Creek Road, which allowed the Hernandez vehicle to continue across the road and through a picnic area located on the pond’s bank. The car then ran into the water in the early evening darkness and began sinking. The occupants, which included Hernandez and his 14-year-old son, Manuel, were able to get free and make it to the nearby shore before the car sunk to the muddy bottom. They both escaped injury.

Lassiter said the car came to rest, wheels down, in the murky water, deep enough where it could not be seen from the bank even though it was just a matter of feet from the bank.

Monday afternoon, when temperatures reached the 50s, Lassiter dove out to the wreck and attached a cable. A large wrecker was then used to pull the car up and onto shore.