Driver pulled from car after crashing into nearby creek
Posted on Wednesday, March 5, 2008
A Bella Vista man risked his life Thursday to save the life of a man whose car crashed upside down in Little Sugar Creek.
Roland Pinault was running on the Lake Bella Vista Trail near the pedestrian bridge about noon when he heard someone shouting. He looked up and saw a man waving his arms and pointing at Little Sugar Creek.
Seeing a car upside down, Pinault said he ran into the murky water.
“ I went down into the water to see if anyone was down there, ” he said.
He got to the car, a BMW 535 i, and began opening the doors. He soon found a man hanging upside down in the driver’s seat, still secured in the seat belt. But try as hard as he could, Pinault couldn’t get the man out. The driver was later identified as David Correll, 20, of Bella Vista. Neither Pinault, nor the man shouting for help, Dave Dagley, had a knife to cut the seat belt.
Dagley, from
Sulphur Springs, was
driving south on
nearby U. S. 71 when he
said he “ saw
something, ” then a splash.
Not sure what had just
happened, he headed to the spot on an access road behind Walgreens.
When he realized the “ something ” he had seen was a car going into the water, he immediately dialed 911 to summon help.
While on the phone, Dagley saw Pinault on the opposite side of the creek, so he yelled at him.
Within minutes, crews from the Bella Vista Fire Department and an ambulance arrived. They were soon backed up by firefighters and rescue personnel from Bentonville. Also responding were officers from the Bella Vista and Bentonville Police departments and deputies from the Benton County Sheriff’s Office.
Wearing a life jacket and secured to a rope held by a fellow firefighter, Bella Vista firefighter-paramedic Josh Whitaker dove into the water and freed the driver of the car using scissors to cut the seat belt.
Whitaker pulled Correll to the bank where other rescue workers placed him on a specially designed stretcher and pulled him up to the road. They then loaded him into a waiting ambulance where paramedics began emergency treatment.
The ambulance crew worked for several minutes to stabilize Correll, who was then taken to Northwest Medical Center in Bentonville, BVFD Battalion Chief Jim Basse said.
As of Monday, Correll was in the intensive care unit, a hospital employee said.
Following the accident, officials were seen investigating the area between Walgreens and the creek. They checked and measured tire marks in the grass leading from the drug store to the access road.
A wrecker pulled the car from the water about 1: 30 p. m.
Prior to that, however, officials from the Bella Vista and Bentonville fire departments placed a floating device across the creek, downstream from the crash, to stop the flow of any oil or gasoline. Once the floating boom trapped petroleum products, firefighters threw pads onto the water to absorb the oils. The pads were retrieved and disposed of safely.
No official cause of the accident has been released by investigators.
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