Father and Daughter Drown As Strangers Try to Save Them After Van Plunges Into Jetty
Despite the best efforts of strangers who frantically tried to help, an elderly man and his daughter drowned after their van plunged into a Florida lagoon.
Carol Hayden, 64, and her father, Eugene, 88, perished as their minivan sunk lower and lower as strangers plunged into the water in a desperate effort to free them.
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“They were frozen with fear, but I’d like the family to know they certainly did everything they could to get out,” rescuer Tim Cobb of Venice told local reporters at the tragedy’s site.
Cellphone video shows a police boat arriving as the white van plunged hood-first into the intracoastal waves. Another craft hovered nearby and men jumped from it and swam toward the sinking minivan.
One man managed to shatter a rear driver’s side window with a hammer and hoisted his head and shoulders in, but was unable to reach the driver.
“I gave them the ‘roll down the windows’ motion and they just shook their heads,” Cobb said. “They couldn’t get the windows down.’’
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Water pressure against the van’s doors prevented them from opening, he said.
The victims lived at a nearby retirement community and were well-known there, police said.
Residents said both appeared in good spirits Monday in the hours before their vehicle appeared to drive straight into the water, according to witnesses. The woman, who was driving, hit a sign, then reversed and then shot into the jetty.
Police are investigating the incident.
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