By Vianna Davila
San Antonio Express-News
Copyright 2007 San Antonio Express-News
All Rights Reserved
SAN ANTONIO — Once a competitive swimmer and a lifeguard, Tammy Garcia could think of only one thing when a car crashed into Woodlawn Lake in front of her home early Sunday: to rescue the woman trapped inside.
“I have daughters,” Garcia thought. “I wouldn’t want my daughters to be alone in the water.”
Though she braved the cold water wearing only a T-shirt and jeans, Garcia’s efforts could not save the woman, whose body later was located by a diver from the Fire Department after he spotted a reflection off her clothing.
“I tried,” Garcia said, fighting back tears. “I tried to find her.”
The case is under investigation, San Antonio Police Department spokesman Joe Rios said.
Police originally were called to the 200 block of North Josephine Tobin Drive at 3:56 a.m. Sunday for reports of a vehicle submerged in the water and a woman inside, according to a 911 dispatcher.
According to Tammy Garcia and her husband, Louis, they were awakened by the sound of a man banging on the door of their home, directly across the street from the lake.
The man was soaking wet “from head to toe,” Louis Garcia said.
His car had crashed into the water, he told them, and his pregnant fiancee was inside.
Immediately, Louis Garcia ran to wake Tammy. Before he knew it, his wife was in the water, swimming through the frigid cold and pounding on the car window, hoping to find the girl.
“My first thought was, get her out of the water,” Tammy Garcia said.
She swam to the car’s open trunk, still halfway out of the water, and looked for a crowbar or some other device she could use to pry open the window. She found nothing, so she swam back and tried to pull down the passenger window with her hands.
When she noticed the driver’s side window was down, she swam around the car and dived under the water. Twice she tried to poke around in the car, running her hands over the floorboards for any sign that the woman was inside the vehicle.
But she could see nothing: no objects, no woman.
“It was just like blackness,” she said.
Garcia’s husband stood at the shore, calling for her. Eventually he threw her an extension cord and helped pull her back up the slippery bank of the lake.
As far as the Garcias know, the man who had showed up at the front door never went back into the water.
A dive team from the San Antonio Fire Department showed up soon afterward to search the lake. Her body was floating in the water about 15 feet away from the car, Rios said.
The Bexar County medical examiner’s office was not releasing her identity until her family was notified.
Rios said police still are trying to determine who was driving the car or how the vehicle ended up the in water. Police detected no skid marks, he said.
And the Garcias noted that none of the pylons that surround the lake had been knocked down.
The man in the vehicle was taken to downtown University Hospital for an involuntary blood draw, Rios added.
No charges have been filed.
Debris still floated on the water’s surface Sunday morning: a red ice chest, a pair of shoes and a tire. Louis Garcia fished out a small blue denim purse, still unsure if it belonged to the woman. A pink stuffed animal drifted further downstream, though the Garcias weren’t sure where it came from.
The couple fought back tears as they thought of the woman’s parents, curious if they were wondering when their daughter was coming home.
Tammy Garcia thought of what she would say to them if she could.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said. “And I tried to help your baby.”