In the last few weeks, multiple individuals have found themselves inadvertently turning their commutes into aquatic nightmares after driving their vehicles into pools. It happens more often than most would think, and it raises questions about the circumstances behind these unintentional dives.
Drunk driving is often a reason. Eliseo David Cruz, 22, was charged with a DWI after he lost control of his vehicle, hit a palm tree and a fence, before landing upside down in the municipal pool in Port Lavaca, Texas, at 11:23 p.m. on February 23. The man refused medical treatment and was taken to the county jail.
Alcohol was also suspected in a tragic accident that took the lives of two men in their thirties who were not wearing seatbelts. The driver took himself, a passenger, and a Subaru over an embankment, through a fence and into a residential pool in Clearlake, California, on March 10. The men were pronounced dead at the scene.
A surprising number of drivers mistake the gas pedal for the brake. That’s probably what happened to a 61-year-old woman who drove herself, a 3-year-old passenger, and her 2015 Lexus into a downtown Niagara Falls, New York, hotel pool at 11:30 a.m. on February 27. After crashing through a portion of the building, the car landed in the indoor Courtyard by Marriott pool. No injuries were reported, but the building itself suffered extensive damages.
Dementia was at least part of the explanation provided for why 79-year-old Jacques Dieudonne crashed a new Mercedes through a fence, a pool screen, and into his daughter’s pool in Margate, Florida, at about noon on February 6. The man, who was rescued from the pool by family members and is expected to be OK, said that only God could explain what had caused the incident.
A medical emergency was the reason given for why a Georgia man drove his car through a fence and landed on top of a very strong pool cover in Cobb County at 2:30 p.m. on February 21. The homeowner called the police, who arrived in time the break the back window of the car and pull the unconscious man to safety.
Car on pool cover. Photo: Cobb County Police
