By Alexis Stevens
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
SMYRNA, Ala. — Three bystanders said they didn’t think twice when they saw a black Acura drive through a fence and into a Smyrna neighborhood’s swimming pool Thursday morning.
“We all jumped in,” David Huebner told the AJC.
Their quick action may have saved a life. The driver, who apparently had suffered a medical emergency, was still wearing his seat belt when rescued after his sedan plunged into the pool around 11:30 a.m.
Huebner, who was painting the clubhouse in the Oakdale Bluffs subdivision off Oakdale Road, and a co-worker, Eddie Brinkley, saw the car run over a curb and down a small embankment into the pool.
Huebner called 911, then jumped into the pool behind Brinkley and a homeowner. The three men pushed the car to the shallow end of the pool and hurried to get the driver out.
“We saw the guy shaking,” Huebner said. “Then he just passed out.”
As water started to fill the car, the motorist opened his eyes but was unresponsive, Huebner said. “I asked if he could take off his seat belt, and he had no idea what I was asking.”
The three rescuers pulled the man from the driver’s seat and got him out of the water as gasoline and oil from the car begin to spill into the pool, Brinkley said. Within minutes, an ambulance and firefighters arrived and took the man to a hospital for evaluation.
“If nobody had been here, he would have drowned within a minute,” Brinkley said.
The unidentified motorist is expected to be OK despite the apparent medical emergency that precipitated the plunge into the pool, Lt. Shannon Turner of the Smyrna Fire Department told the AJC. “He was just in the wrong place when it happened,” Turner said.
The rescuers had a momentary scare when they noticed a baby carrier in the back seat. “I didn’t think anything about there being another person,” Brinkley said.
Only the driver was in the car, Brinkley said while watching a towing crew pull the car from the water. A few stuffed animals were floating in the pool along with other items from inside the car.
No one was injured at the pool, but people at the neighborhood clubhouse said had the crash occurred a few hours later, it could have been a disaster.
“The pool was empty, thank God,” Huebner said. “Yesterday afternoon, all of these chairs were full of people.”
Copyright 2012 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution