Two elderly women were pulled from a sinking car Friday night after their vehicle crashed through a fence and plunged into a pond along a busy stretch of Tamiami Trail in North Port, Florida, according to North Port Fire Rescue. A nearby lawn crew saw the crash happen, called 911, and grabbed their own landscaping equipment to hack a path through trees and brush so rescuers could reach the water in time.
The crash happened in the 17000 block of Tamiami Trail, an area lined with local businesses, North Port Fire Rescue said. As reported by FOX 13 Tampa Bay, journalist Danielle Zulkosky covered the rescue, which the station described simply as good Samaritans saving two women from a sinking car. Thick foliage along the pond's edge had blocked a clear route to the shoreline, but the landscaping crew's makeshift path opened the way for emergency crews to get to the water quickly.
Firefighters from North Port Fire Rescue Stations 81 and 82 swam into the pond and pulled both women from the car just as water reached the vehicle's dashboard, the department said. Neither woman was injured in the crash or the rescue that followed.
No Tire Marks Found at the Scene
In an update, the North Port Police Department said investigators found no obvious tire marks leading up to the water, and that the car had slipped underneath the fence before entering the pond. Police noted the outcome would likely have been fatal without the swift intervention from both the lawn crew and firefighters. What caused the vehicle to leave Tamiami Trail without leaving visible skid marks remains unclear.
The rescue unfolded fast, and for good reason. Safety research published by CapRadio indicates that occupants inside a sinking car typically have only about 60 seconds to escape before rising water pressure outside makes it impossible to open doors or windows. In this case, water had already climbed to the dashboard by the time firefighters made contact with the vehicle.
Why Escape Tools and Timing Matter
Drowning-prevention experts point to the “SWOC” protocol — seat belts off, windows open, out immediately, children first — and generally recommend that trapped occupants prioritize getting out over dialing 911 from inside the car, since every second spent on the phone eats into the narrow float-phase window. Complicating matters further, WTSP has reported that common spring-loaded glass-breaker tools generally fail against laminated side-window glass, which is increasingly standard in newer vehicles and is engineered specifically not to shatter on impact.
North Port's geography makes this kind of crash more than a one-off risk. The city sits at the lower end of the 195-square-mile Big Slough Watershed, according to flood hazard documentation from the City of North Port, which means roadside ponding and canal overflows are a recurring hazard whenever heavy rain causes local waterways to crest their banks. Legal research citing federal highway safety data has found that Florida leads the nation in submerged vehicle drownings, averaging dozens of deaths a year tied to its dense network of roadside canals and retention ponds.
A City Still Adding Fire Stations to Keep Pace
The rescue also lands amid a period of rapid growth for North Port Fire Rescue. Hoodline reported this week that the department recently opened Fire Station 87 in Wellen Park, its seventh facility, as the city's population has surpassed 96,500 residents, making North Port one of the fastest-growing cities in Sarasota County. The added capacity comes as crews continue responding to water-related emergencies tied to the region's extensive drainage system.
Friday's rescue is the latest in a string of similar water rescues across Florida and beyond in recent months. Similar incidents have played out in Pinellas County, where officers swam into a retention pond to pull an unresponsive driver from a submerged car, and in Hillsborough County, where deputies waded into waist-high water to free a driver through a broken window. In North Port, it was a lawn crew's fast thinking, paired with firefighters from Stations 81 and 82, that turned a potentially fatal plunge into a rescue with no injuries reported.
