Heroes' Perspective of St. Croix Submerged Vehicle Rescue
Tuesday, 15 Apr 2008, 8:01 PM CDT
Water rescue crews rescued four passengers from a submerged SUV in Stillwater.
ST. CROIX – According to the Washington County Fire Department dive team, water rescues are rare. Usually by the time divers locate a submerged vehicle, the operation turns into a recovery effort.
Not so the case on Sunday night when an SUV drove off a service road into the St. Croix River. As a new member of the Washington Co. dive team, 25-year-old Jonas Werpy was the first diver on the scene and into the water.
"Everyone was under water from what I saw, there was no air pocket that was visible from where I was,” said Werpy. "In those conditions there was really nothing that I was seeing."
In the dark he broke the rear window of the SUV, and reached inside to make the rescue. He reached for the nearest person, pulling a woman out before going back down twice to retrieve another woman and a man.
"It was numbingly cold where it was very difficult to function in the water,” said Werpy. Tim Bell retrieved the last victim from the water. "To have an incident where we actually get 4 people out and are able to reestablish pulse it was a great moment for all of us,” said Bell.
Since then, two of the victims have died. 28-year-old Mohanraj Pothiraj was pronounced dead Monday morning at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday night, Rohini Krishnamurthy, 27, was pronounced dead. The two other victims hospitalized are 25-year-old Deepa Veluswamy and 25-year-old Kalai Selvi Vijaya Kumar, in critical condition at Regions Hospital.
Washington County created the dive team 15 years ago. They’ve been training for situations like this since 1992.
Tuesday, 15 Apr 2008, 8:01 PM CDT
Water rescue crews rescued four passengers from a submerged SUV in Stillwater.
ST. CROIX – According to the Washington County Fire Department dive team, water rescues are rare. Usually by the time divers locate a submerged vehicle, the operation turns into a recovery effort.
Not so the case on Sunday night when an SUV drove off a service road into the St. Croix River. As a new member of the Washington Co. dive team, 25-year-old Jonas Werpy was the first diver on the scene and into the water.
"Everyone was under water from what I saw, there was no air pocket that was visible from where I was,” said Werpy. "In those conditions there was really nothing that I was seeing."
In the dark he broke the rear window of the SUV, and reached inside to make the rescue. He reached for the nearest person, pulling a woman out before going back down twice to retrieve another woman and a man.
"It was numbingly cold where it was very difficult to function in the water,” said Werpy. Tim Bell retrieved the last victim from the water. "To have an incident where we actually get 4 people out and are able to reestablish pulse it was a great moment for all of us,” said Bell.
Since then, two of the victims have died. 28-year-old Mohanraj Pothiraj was pronounced dead Monday morning at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday night, Rohini Krishnamurthy, 27, was pronounced dead. The two other victims hospitalized are 25-year-old Deepa Veluswamy and 25-year-old Kalai Selvi Vijaya Kumar, in critical condition at Regions Hospital.
Washington County created the dive team 15 years ago. They’ve been training for situations like this since 1992.
