Woman found wandering after driving car into Cape Coral canal

A woman was found wandering with a head injury by Cape Coral Police after crews responded to a call regarding a car in a canal.

Cape Coral Fire Department’s dive team arrived on the scene at around 3 a.m. on Thursday at Skyline Boulevard and Mohawk Parkway.

No one was in the car or the water when it was pulled from the canal.

Cape Coral Police Department says a neighbor called them alerting them to the woman. Police found the driver walking six blocks away, wet and with a head contusion. She was transported to a local hospital for treatment.

The woman is expected to be OK and the car was towed from the canal.

WINK News asked Cape Coral Police how common canal crashes are.

Officer Mercedes Phillips with CCPD said there have been 14 crashes into canals within the last year.

“Two have happened within the last month,” said Phillips, “one of them was fatal, so obviously that is something that’s of concern to us.

Most roads have signs indicating that you’re supposed to turn, but sometimes Phillip said, people aren’t paying attention. 

“They don’t see it. Maybe it’s not well lit, and then these accidents happen like that.”

At this time, it is unclear what lead up to the woman crashing into the canal.

While the woman told police no one else was in the car with her, Cape Coral Fire Department diver Jacob Kingery told me his team did their due diligence and searched the water.

“Because we don’t know the circumstances. We want to we want to make sure that that you know is that cars clear. And there’s no victims present, you know, because we don’t know the events leading up to that incident. So we make it a point to dive every for car that’s in the canal,” said Kingery.

Kingery said he and other divers are ready to go for any instance. They train like they play.

When asked what’s the most difficult part about responding to a scene like this? 

“There’s a lot of times there’s debris in these canals. There’s almost zero visibility. A lot of times these calls come in in the middle of night. So, we just visibility’s a thing. So unfortunately, we have great equipment, and we’re able to prevail through that,” said Kingery. 

Kingery estimated this specific canal to be about 5 feet.

He said it is important for drivers to have the life saving tool called “Life Hammer,” which will break your window should you ever end up in a situation like this.

“Just remain calm, you’re going To want to unbuckle your seatbelt. Alright, we’re going To try to open our door if we can, hopefully you have one of these devices, you can break up that window and make it out,” said Kingery. 

Don’t hit your windshield with the Life Hammer. Instead opt for one of the lower corners on the window.

“The only problem you could have as tint on there, sometimes the tint will kind of hold it in place. But you want to have that life hammer in a good location where you get to it easily. The technique is to try to hit in one of the corners usually down low. That allows the best place to have a good hit on it,” said Kingery. 

Daniel Hennigan of Cape Coral told WINK News he woke up at about 3 a.m. and noticed his house was lit up by emergency lights. 

There are two empty lots near Daniel’s home, but he still wonders how this happened and how the woman got out safely.

“I honestly don’t know how she got out especially because there’s no ladders around this area.”

The Cape Coral Police Department is investigating the cause of this crash.