A West Roxbury driver plunged into the Charles River and was rescued from her sinking car moments after the shocking accident, witnesses said.
After being freed from her semi-submerged Ford Focus, the woman was taken to Deaconess-Glover Hospital in Needham and was released Thursday.
Witnesses said the accident happened after the woman sped off from a gas station and took a “hard right” through Dedham’s Olde Irish Alehouse parking lot, right into the water.
Bridge Street Automotive employee Justin Kenney said coworker Jeff Knox was stationed at the gas pumps Thursday afternoon when the driver backed into one, badly damaging it.
“As she started to back up with her feet on the brake and gas, she was just spinning the tires like crazy,” said Kenney, 24, of Norwood. “After she hit the pumps she panicked, and then she hit the pedals, both feet down.”
He said at that point, she shot forward. “She went flying through here, through the Olde Ale House parking lot,” Kenney said. He thought she was going to drive away, “and then I saw the car just take a sharp right and just go plummeting into the water.”
She hit a concrete curb, and her “car went airborne right into the river,” Kenney said of the accident, which took place shortly before 4 p.m.
Knox, 25, was first in the water, and Kenney followed. The driver, who was covered in blood on her nose and shirt, “was definitely in a lot of shock,” Kenney said.
Said witness Sam DiGiandomenico, 25: “She’s sitting there, just looking up, not doing anything, as the water is rising.”
Thought Kenney: “We’ve got to get this woman out. She’s just in complete shock right now.”
Kenney, Knox, and beer deliveryman Frank McDonagh of Norwood went into the river, pulled the floating Ford Focus closer to shore, and freed the trapped driver before firefighters arrived at 3:57 p.m.
“The door snapped, basically snapped off from the pressure of the water,” Kenney recalled.
Another passerby, Marion Blander of West Roxbury, also helped. Blander, a nurse who works at a nearby chiropractor’s office, assessed the driver and gave her first aid after she was pulled from the river, according to Kenney and the Fire Department.
“(Blander) was getting out of work, saw it happen, and she kept the woman calm until the Fire Department and ambulances reached her,” Kenney said.
