Bullard teens, first responders rescue woman from car submerged in pond

BULLARD, Texas (KLTV) - A woman has been hospitalized after teenagers and first responders rescued her from a car submerged in a pond near Bullard overnight.

Sometime before 11:45 p.m. Monday, law enforcement responded to Farm to Market Road 346 and Olivia Lane in Smith County, west of Bullard.

A car had crashed in a curve in the road before flipping upside down in a nearby pond. At this time of night, the temperature had dropped to the high 40′s, not far from the conditions that commonly induce hypothermia.

The unidentified woman was the only occupant of the vehicle and jaws of life were needed to extract her.

According to the incident commander, Flint Fire Lt. Hunter Wrath, six or seven bystanders were in the water trying to help when law enforcement arrived at the scene.

Bullard High School students Sheane Congo, Kyle Schneider, Derek Bowers and Drue Bowers were among the first to jump in the pond.

“When we first got here, the car was flipped over. The wheels were up. There was no way she could’ve been breathing ... We all four got in the water and were able to get the car on its side,” Schneider said.

“It was very scary because we kept tapping on the top of the car, saying ‘are you okay?’ But they couldn’t make a sound and we couldn’t hear anything so we didn’t know what was happening.”

The Bullard Fire Department had four swift water rescue swimmers on scene working to remove the vehicle from the pond just before 1 a.m.

Fire officials confirmed the woman was responsive by the time EMS transported her from the scene to a hospital.

“Thankfully she was still breathing, but first when she came up, her face was white. She looked like a zombie, like she was dead,” said Schneider.

“It was shocking,” added Congo.

A telephone pole and power line were knocked down in the crash, cutting off power to several homes in the area.

Cherokee County Electric dispatched a crew to assess the damage later Tuesday morning.

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