Geez, that is a horrible story. The picture of the one woman at Christmas with her significant other and her dog (the dog that also drowned?) really got to me.
I have always thought that drowning is a horrible way to go and being in a car that’s sinking would be terrifying. I wonder if they tried to roll the windows down and couldn’t? That’s usually what they say you should do to escape if you can’t open the doors on a car that’s sinking.
I can see how it happened. In bad weather, especially at night, it would be easy to get lost and disoriented multiple times.
That one article shows the boat landing and I can definitely imagine that I could get confused and drive into the water under those circumstances.
If I recall the method on Mythbusters correctly, trying to open the windows before the car sinks very far is your best bet. Alternately, wait until car pressure equalizes then roll down windows or open doors, or (naturally) break a window with a spring-loaded tool designed to do that. (You can buy multi-tools like that via Amazon for usually under $20; they typically have a seatbelt cutter and flashlight built in, too.)
I saw a local news story where they explained that you should open the car doors right after getting in the water. Don’t waste time on 911. There’s only a short window of time that the doors will open before the pressure builds up.
They should never place a boat ramp at the end of a road. It’s just an accident waiting to happen. It should be L Shaped. Where the road dead ends maybe a couple hundred feet past the ramp. That way you have to turn off the road to get on the ramp. Much less chance of someone just driving along and running into the water.
We had a lady killed about 40 miles from my house last year. Dark rainy night. She was lost and drove right off the road and into the lake. A senseless tragedy.
I can see driving down the wrong road, and maybe even down a boat ramp and into the water. But it’s a ramp; how much farther past the water line would you have to go for the water to cover the whole car and drown you?
Does it actually have to cover the whole car? Or just enough to disable it and you can’t see and just get dragged in?
Not sure - but I’ve been in some pretty heavy rains - and if they started to get deeper - not sure if it would have even occurred to me I might be on a boat ramp until it was too late…
Apparently it was found 175 feet from the shore - apparently other cars have floated in - in the past, but people got out in time.
I also wouldn’t expect to see my car start floating - and once it is floating you probably can’t reverse either. And article suggests electronic locks and doors may have made it hard to get out.
I know it sounds stupid, but I really think it could be a combination of really unlucky factors.
It has to be deep enough to at least cover your nose and mouth. Suppose you drove in until the water was up to the door handles; water would flow in but it wouldn’t get any higher inside the car than out.
Maybe there’s something here I’m missing; like the ramp was very steep or dropped off suddenly, or the water disabled the doors locks and windows until they were carried farther out by the tide or something.
I think it goes back to what Bill Cosby said in one of his old comedy routines; some people just go around all day with nothing but “BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ” in their head. Unfortunately that lack of attention is sometimes fatal. Don’t drive if you can’t see the road.
They may have been hypothermic after the first rescue and not thinking or reacting at top efficiency while driving. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened.