3 softball players missing in N.D.

Here's advice on how to escape from a prof who wrote a paper on the subject. First rule. Don't touch the cellphone

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/721068--how-to-get-out-of-a-sinking-car?bn=1

Bottom line, you have to remember four words," Giesbrecht said. "Seatbelts. Children. Windows. Out."

All the vehicles in Giesbrecht's study floated before they sank. Float times varied between 30 seconds and two minutes. Giesbrecht advises you use this time to first undo your own seatbelt, undo those of any children in the vehicle, open the driver-side window and escape, first pushing children out ahead of you.

 

2 dear friends of mine, a married couple aged 80, died around Christmas Day 1984 when they drove into a river that had flooded a road in rural Tennessee. I was with another elderly couple and all 5 of us were conducting a bird count and our friends had gone out at 4 in the morning to find a barred owl and inadvertently drove into the river. They were found about an hour later, at sun up.

We didn't yet know what happened when they didn't show up for our planned lunch at a restaurant around 11 a.m. that morning. The minor consolation we found in the whole episode was that they died together, as they were the most loving couple I've still ever met, and the idea of one outliving the other would be unthinkable. And for what it's worth, they did have in their flooded records in their car a check mark next to the barred owl entry.

 

I gotta imagine they almost certainly had no idea what to do. "Call for help" is not an unreasonable reaction in an emergency.

 

It's been nicer than normal for this time of year, but they would have been in trouble even if they got out of the car.

Soaking wet in freezing water at nighttime and a long way from town with no cell phone is *not* a good position to be in around here. Looking at google maps, they might have been near some sort of rural subdivision, but still not chances I'd want to take.

 

Very sad story.