Another woman,SUV,Cell Phone Threat Thread

KevinP73 · 10:01 PM

Woman rescued after car plummets over bridge in downtown Portland

PORTLAND (AP) — A woman talking on her cell phone lost control of her car and crashed into the guardrail of a downtown Portland bridge, then plummeted into the Willamette River below, police said Saturday.
Thirty-one-year-old Melisa Borgaard somehow managed to get free from her car, which sank to the bottom of the river, and was rescued by a diver, said Lt. Mike Shults with the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office.

"She took a chunk out of the bridge, took out the guardrail," Shults told KGW.com, the Web site of Portland's NBC affiliate.

The diver, Rich Tyler, said Borgaard seemed disoriented as he was swimming toward her.

"She was lying face-up in the water; she'd look up at me as I was swimming out there," Tyler recalled. "Once I got there, she didn't quite know what had happened."

Borgaard was taken to Oregon Health & Science University for treatment of hypothermia and other injuries, including cuts on her face and hands.

Shults said Borgaard told detectives she was talking on her cell phone to family members when she veered out of her lane and crashed into the guardrail.

Investigators are trying to figure out if she was speeding and exactly what caused her to lose control.

"That is a very big fall inside an automobile into a very cold bunch of water," said Lt. Don Beahm with Portland Fire and Rescue. "I think she was very lucky."

BlueSkyJaunte · 03-27-2005, 10:08 PM

They sell water in bunches now?

dd74 · 03-27-2005, 10:16 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BlueSkyJaunte
They sell water in bunches now?

And women on the phone in SUVs, apparently...

turbo6bar · 03-28-2005, 04:44 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by KevinP73
The diver, Rich Tyler, said Borgaard seemed disoriented as he was swimming toward her.

"She was lying face-up in the water; she'd look up at me as I was swimming out there," Tyler recalled. "Once I got there, she didn't quite know what had happened."

They forgot to mention she was disoriented because she was STILL talking on the cell phone while being rescued.

lendaddy · 03-28-2005, 04:49 AM

Actually I saw her on TV this morning, she was on a hands free cell. Are we going to ban talking inside a vehicle now? We can still blame it on the SUV though........whew!

Don Ro · 03-28-2005, 06:50 AM

I just saw the story on morning T.V. news - hands-free phone it was.
.
I've often wondered, if cell phone use/talking while driving is so benign and accepted, would it be OK to be doing so while taking the DMV practical driving test? Or would that be too much of a confront to our social hypocrisy?
.
"Ah, madam, you'll have to put down your phone.
You'll need to pay attention to the conditions of the road during this test."
.

skipdup · 03-28-2005, 07:14 AM

Yeah... but I bet she votes republican.

Drago · Drago's Garage

Quote:

Originally posted by skipdup
Yeah... but I bet she votes republican.

In Portland OR? Not likely skippy.

pwd72s · 03-28-2005, 09:22 AM

Here's a cut & paste from the morning edition of The Portland Yellow Pages....
'Please let them be coming for me'
The SUV driver who plunged from the Morrison Bridge recounts escaping the Willamette's dark depths and floating as onlookers cheered and sirens wailed
Monday, March 28, 2005
PETER FARRELL
"You're in a car going off a bridge -- you think you're done," Melissa Borgaard said Sunday.

But at least 55 feet deep in the Willamette River, she began to think she might survive her 60-foot fall from the Morrison Bridge in downtown Portland. She struggled to release her seat belt and got to the water's surface.

She could hear cheers from a crowd along the river wall. Floating on her back in the fast current to save energy, she also heard sirens.

"They've got to be coming for me," she told herself. "Please let them be coming for me."

They were.

People were amazed she survived Saturday and surprised that by Sunday -- bruised and scratched and hurting but not seriously injured -- she walked out of OHSU Hospital.

No one was more surprised than Borgaard, 31, that she kept her wits in what was, even in a city of bridges, a spectacular event.

The legal secretary talked about her fears and near-drowning Sunday, both to thank her rescuers and to tell the world she is a good driver who was aware of the traffic around her, was not speeding, was alone in the car and was not distracted by talking to her sister, Alicia, on her hands-free phone about dinner plans as she drove to a downtown hair appointment.

"It was no different than if she had been sitting next to me," she said.

Alicia heard her cry "Oh! Oh!" before the phone went dead. She knew something had happened but didn't know where. She started tracking Melissa's movements to find her.

By then, Melissa was underwater.

The bridge surface's wet grating had felt as if she were driving on ice, she said. As she began to slide and quickly steered to avoid a nearby car, she overcorrected. Then she felt as if she had been launched from a slingshot. "There wasn't anything I could do,"she said, as the back end of her SUV swung around and sent her flying.

She first crashed through the bridge safety railing. That impact probably smashed her windshield. If it hadn't, she suspects she would have died, trapped in her car.

Her air bag deployed as she went off the bridge, blocking her view as she fell toward the water. "I couldn't see, so maybe it wasn't as scary as it could have been." She knew she was going off the bridge but had no way to time a last breath before she hit.

Her car quickly sank to the river bottom, and darkness closed in faster than she could believe. The Vancouver woman decided she was not meant to die after all.

"I struggled a little bit with my seat belt, and I thought, 'This can't be it,' " she said. "I thought, 'OK, where am I at? I need to figure out where my seat belt is.' "

She felt for her door handle and located her belt release, not thinking that she wouldn't be able to open her door against the pressure of the river's water.

The car filled almost instantly. "By the time I got out of my seat belt," she said, "I was already sort of floating upward," apparently through the smashed-out windshield.

She saw light through the dark, dirty water she was trying not to swallow, then more light. "Finally, I popped up."

She heard people cheering from the river bank, where several people with cell phones had called 9-1-1 seconds after Borgaard went off the bridge. She could not hear any of the people who were yelling for her to stop swimming and to float on her back. But she soon decided that was all she could do.

"I tried to tread water for a couple of minutes, but I was just so tired," she said. "I don't know whether it was from struggling trying to get out (of the SUV) or not being able to breathe, or the temperature of the water or what, but I was exhausted and couldn't breathe, and I just floated on my back."

Rich Tyler, a dive team rescue swimmer stationed at the Portland Fire Bureau's main station a few blocks away, was lowered down the 20-foot bank and swam about 100 yards to get Borgaard on a Multnomah County sheriff's boat that also came to the rescue.

"I really appreciated his effort," Borgaard said. "I don't think I was ever shaken so bad in my life."

Marine deputies from the sheriff's office and the Fire Bureau dive team will meet this week to decide about raising the car, which they may use for a training session.

After what she had been through, Borgaard said, she wasn't too worried about the car.

KevinP73 · 03-28-2005, 10:12 AM

One detail I'm curious about is what kind of SUV was she driving? I've seen the aftermath of a lot of accidents and most windshields don't fail to a point where someone could escape through it. Or is it possible that in her confusion she exited out the side window?