Jan. 04--DEERFIELD BEACH -- One by one in the dark of night, rescue divers pulled three people from the murky waters that swallowed an SUV after it careened off of Interstate 95 late Wednesday.
It wasn't until authorities notified relatives of the dead and injured that they realized yet another passenger was missing.
When rescue divers returned to the scene at first light Thursday, it took less than an hour to find the 15-year-old girl's body. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
"It's a tragedy, you don't want to have this kind of outcome," Broward Sheriff's Fire-Rescue spokesman Mike Jachles said. "The firefighter paramedics did what they were trained to do. They performed flawlessly; however, we can only do so much. I think the rest is in God's hands."
The window of time that separates a rescue effort from a recovery operation is very brief, Jachles said, and the divers remained in the water well into the early morning hours.
It was a three-vehicle collision about 10:10 p.m. Wednesday that sent the 2000 Lexus SUV and its four occupants through a fence and into a roadside lake just south of Hillsboro Boulevard.
The lone survivor, Sandalie Jean-Baptiste, 20, is on life support at Broward Health North.
Driver Nadege Theodore, 37, and Guivens Daverman, 16, both of Pompano Beach, were pronounced dead at the hospital.
It has not yet been officially confirmed, but it is believed that the 15-year-old found Thursday is Theodore's daughter, Lyne.
Efforts were under way to contact the girl's father, who may be in Haiti, Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Mark Wysocky said.
Theodore, who worked as a home health aide for Matrix Home Care in Boca Raton, and her passengers were on their way back from the Town Center at Boca Raton mall. It was unclear how everyone in the vehicle was related, Wysocky said.
WFOR-Ch. 4 reported that Daverman was Theodore's nephew.
An "RIP Guivens Daverman" Facebook page created Thursday offers condolences to Daverman and his cousin, Lyne Theodore, both students at Blanche Ely High School.
Dozens of friends and fellow students remarked on Davermna's bright demeanor, good looks and charm. "He had the brightest smile that would make your day," said one.
Authorities said that when Theodore, Daverman, and Jean-Baptiste were pulled from the water, one was in the submerged SUV about 50 feet from shore in 15 to 20 feet of water, and the other two were in the lake. All three were in cardiac arrest. Paramedics were able to resuscitate Jean-Baptiste, who remains in critical condition.
The occupants of the other vehicles involved in the crash were not injured, and both cars -- a 2012 Hyundai Sonata and 2003 Nissan Altima -- sustained minor damage.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
It's not unheard of for first responders to not immediately locate every victim, especially if there are no witnesses and the vehicle's occupants are injured and unable to communicate, said Lt. Arnold Piedrahita, spokesman for Miami-Dade Urban Search and Rescue, which was not involved in Wednesday's recovery effort.
"When you are in rescue mode, you have nothing to go by," Piedrahita said. "Without a witness or somebody to say how many people were in the car, it's practically impossible for us to know."
Rescuers first search the vehicle and then use it as a point of origin to search the vicinity in ever-growing concentric circles. Dark of night and lack of visibility in murky waters further complicate efforts, Piedrahita said.
"How far out do you go? That's a judgment call on the divers and it all boils back to witnesses," he said. "And if there's no one there to tell you ... or clues ... there's not a certain formula, there's no way set in stone of knowing. Every scene is different."
Last July, it took three days before the second victim in a crash was found floating in a canal that runs parallel with the northbound lanes of I-95 north of Atlantic Boulevard.
That vehicle had veered off the highway about 10 p.m. on July 9, plowed through a chain-link fence and flipped into the water. The driver, who was taken to the hospital, told investigators another person was in the car, but the BSO dive team that searched the canal was hampered by thick vegetation.
A passer-by found the other man's body floating in a canal about 200 feet south of the crash site three days later.
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