Two men dove into Irwin Lake Tuesday morning to save a woman who nearly drowned after her husband accidentally drove their van into the water.
The couple were planning to fish around 9 a.m. at the pay lake, 2379 Olive Road, when the van rolled into the water.
The lake manager and his brother-in-law were in the office when they saw the van plunge into the water.
“We looked out, and next thing you know it was in the middle of the lake,” Jason Irwin said Wednesday.
The woman’s husband swam to shore, but his wife was trapped. Irwin said she couldn’t open her door and was “banging on the glass screaming for help.”
Irwin’s brother-in-law Anthony Snyder jumped in, but he couldn’t reach her, so Irwin dove into the chilly water.
“I went out there, took a hammer to bust out the glass and pulled her to the shore,” he said.
As soon he pulled the woman from the van and brought her to the surface, the van sank to the bottom of the lake nearly 20 feet down.
“If we would have been three or four more seconds later, she wouldn’t have made it,” Snyder said.
Emergency crews worked to warm the woman, who had been in the 40-degree water. According to Dayton police, she refused medical treatment and was OK.
No one else was inside the van. A tow truck was called to pull it out of the water.
Irwin and his brother-in-law said they are happy everyone survived.
“She was blessed,” Snyder said. “There is absolutely no doubt.”
