Submerged car pulled from Canonsburg Lake with body inside
Emergency personnel from Peters and North Strabane townships work with a diver searching for a vehicle and driver in Canonsburg Lake Friday morning.
Emergency personnel from Peters and North Strabane townships pull a vehicle with the driver inside from Canonsburg Lake Friday morning.
McMURRAY – A 71-year-old Washington woman died after driving her car into Canonsburg Lake early Friday.
Her identification has not been revealed pending notification of next of kin, according to Washington County Coroner Tim Warco.
The car was seen heading into the lake on the McDowell Lane side in Peters Township at about 7 a.m. Friday by a witness. The witness tried to stop her, according to Warco.
Peters Township police Chief Harry Fruecht said the car pulled from the lake is the same one that a woman tried to drive into it just last week, but did not succeed because the lake was frozen. He said the driver is likely the same woman.
Firefighters from Peters and North Strabane Township, along with the East Bethlehem Township Volunteer Fire Company dive team were called to the scene. Police from Peters and North Strabane were also at the scene, along with the Washington County hazardous materials team.
Pulling the car from the lake took several hours as the cold temperatures and a swift current caused problems and made removal difficult.
The vehicle was finally pulled from the water with a tow truck winch at about noon. Warco said the cause and manner of death are pending an autopsy.
The efforts to get the car out of the lake were geared toward rescue early on, according to Peters Township Deputy Fire Chief Mike McLaughlin, but soon turned to recovery of the vehicle and the driver.
First responders quickly got to the scene, and initially attempted a rescue while in street clothes using a life preserver and a rope, but the car “continued to sink very fast,” McLaughlin said. “The strong wind led to a strong current and that was a problem.”
“Cold temperatures, cold water, wind chill – it was 24 (degrees) in the air, 39 in the water – we had our two divers and two divers from East Beth go in,” McLaughlin continued. “But we had issues like frozen regulators, prolonged exposure and the current swept the car 12 feet deep down into some silt. That led to some entanglement issues with one of the divers, too.
“At the end of the day, it’s unfortunate that it had to happen under these tragic cirucmstances, but the community really came together,” McLaughlin said. “The high school gave us a bus for moving equipment and people and local restaurants brought us lunch.”