Free Dead in the Water by Glenda Carroll Page A

calm of the others. It was Mike’s.
    “Jackie, Jackie…get her out of the car,” he yelled.
    He lunged toward the overturned car again and again, only to be held back by a standing brick wall, a San Mateo County deputy sheriff, from the Moss Beach substation.
    “Step back, sir. We’ll get her out.”
    I grabbed Mike’s arm. “What happened?”
    “What are you doing here?” he asked. He pushed my arm away. “I was driving home and saw you on the beach. Were you in the car?”
    “No. It’s Jackie.”
    He moved closer to the deputy sheriff again. Once again he was told to move back.
    The grey fog was now a thick impenetrable wall only a hundred yards off shore. It inched toward the beach. Above, the gloomy threads of vapor intertwined and completely blocked out the sun. Rescue personnel had little time to get Jackie out of the car and on her way to a hospital before the weather became another factor in the rescue.
    The damp air was raw. Was it from the smothering fog and the chilling breeze off the ocean or was it the sight of Jackie that caused me to shiver? I moved toward the automobile and started to take some pictures.
    She was upside down, sandwiched between the airbag, her seat and the collapsed roof of the car. The driver’s side door was caved in. The windshield was cracked into thousands of tiny pieces. Jackie was conscious, but barely. There was blood, a lot of blood on her face. Ocean water was moving in and out of her window.
    “My god, if the impact didn’t kill her, she could drown,” I said.
    “Ma’am, please step back,” said an officer blocking my view of the wreck. I walked back to Mike who was now talking to a different deputy sheriff.
    “She was behind me most of the way. But her driving seemed erratic, slowing down, pulling off to the side, weaving across the solid yellow line.”
    “Had she been drinking?” asked the deputy sheriff.
    “No, we just came from an open water swim in Santa Cruz. She had something to drink after the swim, but no alcohol. We were going to have lunch here,” said Mike, looking out at the ocean, the same flat dull grey as the horizon and the sky above it.
    While Mike continued talking, I stood to the side, close enough to hear what he was saying but with a good view of the overturned car. Seven firefighters moved around the vehicle, assessing the damage. Soon Mike was beside me. The firefighters, sometimes up to their knees in water, stabilized the car with thick metal struts.
    “Got the tool,” said one firefighter, referring to the large hydraulic rescue spreaders, commonly called the Jaws of Life. It was wedged into a collapsed corner of the door near the roof. Watching intently, I saw the dark green metal of the automobile separate against the pressure of the spreaders.
    A firefighter climbed into the opening of the car and placed a white cervical collar around Jackie’s neck. He eased her out of the car and helped secure her to a blue spineboard. Jackie’s eyes flickered slowly to the men working around her.
    Mike’s face was ashen and his eyes large and glassy. He still wore the blue tee shirt given out to swimmers of the Cold Water Clash. He seemed unaware of the chilling wind blowing off the ocean and the drizzling fog, but his arms had goose bumps.
    “Something was wrong with either her car or her driving,” he said as he looked at Jackie, now lying still on the spine board. “She couldn’t keep up with me. Once, I pulled over to the side and called her to see if she was having car problems. She made a comment about the car being hot and the windows steaming up. Then, she said she was feeling dizzy and sick to her stomach.
    “I pulled into the parking lot and expected her to do the same. Except that she drove past. I saw her look back over her shoulder at me. Then she slowed down even more and tried to make a U turn. I thought for sure another car would be coming from the other direction around the corner by the cliff and hit her. But