Passersby Save Ohio Woman From Pond Wreck

--

Nov. 01--MARYSVILLE, Ohio -- Kim Connolly was driving to work at a local nursing home this morning when, suddenly, she felt her ears pop.

Then, she felt dizzy.

Next thing she knew, the airbags in her Honda Accord deployed and the windows broke. Quickly, the water started rushing in under her doors.

She has driven this route every day for years and never knew there was a pond at the end of the road, right where Rt. 287 runs into Stokes Road at the Union and Logan County line. But Connolly's car slammed into the water before dawn today, and now she's just grateful to be alive.

She doesn't know how she lost control on an otherwise ordinary trip into work, but she credits two passersby -- one of them an Army veteran of the war in Afghanistan -- with saving her life.

Clint Ward happened to be at that intersection at 5:40 a.m. when he noticed some commotion, a person or two getting out of their vehicles. He pulled his semi to the side of the road and got out. He turned toward the side of the road and saw taillights bobbing in the water of a small, nearly-hidden, roadside pond.

The area is heavily traveled, with the Honda plant within sight, so others had already stopped after seeing Connolly careen through the intersection and hit the water. A woman at the scene had called 911; Ward asked if anyone had a rope or a flashlight. No one did.

So he jumped in the water and swam toward Connolly's quickly submerging car.

She was trying to clamber out the driver's side window but she was hysterical. She kept screaming for help.

Ward climbed to the roof of the car, instructed her to grab on, and hauled her up.

"He held on and he never let me go," Connolly said this afternoon from her home in West Liberty. She had some mild hypothermia, but was otherwise uninjured in the crash. She was treated at Memorial Hospital of Union County and released. "If he hadn't come along, I know I wouldn't have been able to get myself out. I was so cold and so scared."

A second man, 47-year-old Monte Dyke, also of West Liberty, also swam out to help.

As the nose of the car sunk into the water, the trunk popped open. The car's back half quickly filled with water and the Honda went down into the pond, which was about eight to 10 feet deep.

So there they were, Connolly and her two rescuers, perched atop the roof of the car, waist deep in freezing water, just as the fire trucks rolled up.

Paramedics and firefighters in wetsuits swam out and safely hauled Connolly to shore. Then they helped Dyke and Ward get there, too.

"No question, she is lucky those men were there," said Trooper Mark Bisel, who works at the Marysville State Highway Patrol post and responded to the crash. "They kept her calm and not panicked and that made the difference. Everyone was cold, but no one was seriously injured."

Ward, a 36-year-old Army Reservist from Russells Point who only returned from Afghanistan in July, said he is just pleased that he was in the right place at the right time this morning.

He was at home this afternoon, too, figuring he had earned the day off.

"I've never been as cold. They probably hadn't, either," Ward said. "But it could have been worse."

Connolly said she doesn't know how she'll be able to repay the men for saving her. And she's got something else to pay, too. Troopers ticketed her for running the stop sign. She now owes the local court $132.