Not quite – a “Hobson’s Choice” is not “no choice,” it means you can choose between what is offered or nothing.
The OP probably meant a “Sophie’s Choice.”
Remember, folks – POGO.
Pop your seatbelt.
Open a window.
Go.
A lot of drownings happen because people try to get out of the car but forget to take their seatbelts off. Apparently in a panicked state of mind, that can happen.
Yeah, but the story talks abbout the wife “going under” or something, such that he felt the need to pull her to safety. No mention of here being injured, or how she got out of the car.
If she got out, it sounds as tho a window or door was (or had been) open. If the car was full of water, the doors could open. Makes me glad my 62 Corvair has crank windows! 
And if the kid was inside with the doors and windows closed, he had air - and time.
Yeah, I know I am asking a lot of folk in a horrendous situation. But reports like this always seem to raise more questions than they answer. What was the situation such that the husband arived at the scene a few minutes after his wife and kid crashed. Was it near their home? Was he following them in another car?
Anyone know how wide, deep, and strong of a river this is? (Did a quick google - apparnetly it is a quite healthy-sized river.)
Well, his son was still in the car a meter underwater. Dad tried to dive down, but couldn’t - too deep. Then his wife, who was out of the car, began to drown, so he pulled her to safety. It wasn’t really a ‘choice’. He couldn’t get to the kid.
It’s the “sat on the shore praying” part that grates on me. It just seems remarkably passive when there might have still been time. Of course I wasn’t there, have no idea how much time had elapsed, etc. maybe it really was the only thing left to do.
The Mythbusters found that they couldn’t always have gotten out of a sinking car in time if they waited for the car to fill with water. Even though they were in a swimming pool and not panicking, Adam mentioned that he would have drowned if it had been a real sinking-car situation. Now add in some panic (being in a car while it sinks has got to be the stuff of nightmares) and murky water.
If the car was too deep for him to dive down to it, what else could he do?
If he had tried to push himself beyond his swimming abilities, there’s a very real chance that he would have needed to be rescued by the emergency personnel who would otherwise have been trying to save his son. Or he might just have interfered with their rescue efforts.
I’m sorry, but that woman needs driving and swimming lessons.
So, how many underwater car rescues have you done, then? I mean, seeing as you think the guy should’ve been able to save both, I’m guessing you’re speaking from experience, right?
AIRC, Adam actually got kind of panicked even knowing what was going to happen and with Jamie in the back seat ready with oxygen, in a clear blue swimming pool in the middle of the day. You are not going to be at your smartest and calmest for this one.
Yes, it was right near their home. The wife had been trying to catch up to kids who had just vandalized their mailbox. The husband was following on foot.
The kid had hit his head on the dashboard, and was knocked out, which is why he didn’t free himself. The station wagon was nose down and the tail lights were three feet below the surface (so figure the front seat was about 10-12ish feet down). The wife tried to rescue the kid, but couldn’t hold her breath long enough. In the murky water couldn’t tell if she was grabbing him or the seat, and was exhausted by the time her husband got there which is why she was “going under”.
I don’t know if you’re in really good shape, but despite all the cardio work I do, if a car is nose-down in 4.5 metres of water, I could probably dive down to it, but would have to pop right back up again for air. I don’t think I’d have the air to help free a kid in the front seat. In this case firefighters using their tanks for air couldn’t get to him either.
I know the actual situation is different, but reminds me of the scene from The Good Son.
I can easily see how someone would panic. I had to do underwater egress training (that’s where they put you in a mockup helicopter, dunk you in water and flip you upside down. Oh, and you’re blindfolded) and even knowing that all I had to do was make a signal and a swimmer would grab me, it took every ounce of will power not to freak out. If someone doesn’t have training and isn’t in the right frame of mind, getting out would be nigh impossible.
Thanks for the added details, SMC.
Thought I made it clear that I acknowledged how horrible the situation. I guess I kept fixating on the description of the car as 3’ down - heck, you could kick the bumper while treading water. Yeah, I readily acknowledge that this situation is a tad different than diving for coins in the deep end of the swimming pool.
When combined with “sitting there praying” and his wife’s inability to save herself, I guess it made me somewhat less sympathetic than I otherwise might have been.
That must have been some mailbox! 
I’m sure I’ve done things that could have ended up sounding just as stupid with enough bad luck, but it sure seems odd to picture:
Those punks vandalized our mailbox again and are running away. Junior, jump in the car with me while your father runs after us on foot …
Yeah, it is a little weird. Authorities are calling it a freak accident. The kid and his buddy were doing some kind of charity work and the three of them - mom, kid, and kid’s friend - were on their way home and basically got home in time to see some kids bash their mailbox and run away. So rather than pull into the driveway they continued to catch up to the kids for a good scolding.
Based on the description in a different news source, the mom pulled over to scold the brats (she must have pulled up onto the grass), claims to have engaged the parking brake because they were at the top of a slope, and while scolding them the car slid forward then down the very steep embankment.
I assume it would have been very, very close to their home and the dad had seen them drive by was heading their way to see what was going on.
And it gives yet one more reason why they might not have been at their most rational. Some people get upset when someone vandalizes their property. They do things in the heat of the moment that they might not do at other times. Like getting in the car and going after mailbox vandals instead of taking their pictures with their cell phone and calling the police. Or forgetting to set the parking brake.
ETA: I’ve heard that smashing a car window from inside the car is harder than most people think it is, too. It would be harder to smash anything under water than it would be outside the water, just because the water provides resistance to the motion of whatever you’re using to smash something.
I truly pity that man. Not just for the loss of his son, though that’s obviously a hard enough blow, but also because it’s going to be all too easy for him to second-guess his actions and blame himself for the kid’s death. Intellectually, it’s easy to see that he made the best decision he could under the circumstances, but emotionally, it has to be hard to swallow.
I pity the woman, too. She must know, now that she’s calmed down, that driving after mailbox vandals to scold them (and not setting the parking brake) was a dumb thing to do, and now she’s lost her son because she did a dumb thing. That’s got to be a hard thing to live with.
I can speak from experience how quickly rational thinking flies away when kids played ding-dong-ditch, egged my house, pissed on my front door…
One time I ran after he little bastards in my stocking feet. Caught the little shits too - their bad luck to pick some guy who happened to be training for a marathon. Only to have their parents threaten to prosecute me for touching their little darlings (When I caught up to them, I grabbed 2 kids’ by the hoods on their hoodies and had them walk me to their house. Thought I was doing pretty good not to beat the crap out of them. :p)
Hey Cellphone, where are you getting your info about this?
Nothing to add to this one, but to share a local story that turned out really bad.
In case the linke dies, the summary:
Woman drops off boyfriend at his house near a lake and in an area that she wasn’t very familiar with.
In the pouring rain, she made some driving error (wrong turn?, too much speed?) and ended up in the lake. It’s dark at this time.
With her in the car was her 14-year-old handicapped daughter.
Mom’s window was rolled down, and she might possibly have been able to escape, but there was no way she was going to be able to rescue her daughter.
When the vehicle was recovered, mom was sitting in the back seat, daughter’s head in her lap, apparently just having waited out the inevitable.
She may or may not have been able to get out herself, but the fact that the window was open means it was possible. In any case, she didn’t leave her daughter.