Out-of-control car in Walmart pond

Staffers from Dakota Service in Brookings attach a towing cable to a partially submerged vehicle that wound up in the Walmart retention pond Wednesday. The driver apparently lost control, and the car rolled down an embankment through a chain link fence and into the pond. Photo by Ken Curley/Register

A Virginia driver lost control of her car in Brookings Wednesday morning, sending the vehicle down an embankment and through a chain link fence before it came to a halt in the Walmart storm water retention pond.

Both the driver and her male passenger appeared responsive at the scene of the accident, but both were taken by ambulance to the Brookings hospital, where they were treated and released.

The accident occurred about 10:30 a.m.

The driver, 19-year-old Alison Taylor of Woodford, Va., was apparently making a turn off 22nd Avenue into the south Walmart entrance, just east of McCrory Gardens, when she lost control of the car, which jumped the curb and rolled down the embankment and toward the pond.

Taylor, who was described as an inexperienced driver, told police she meant to step on the brakes and instead hit the gas. One of the car’s mirrors was knocked off when the car hit a utility pole, and it lurched forward and into the water.

A witness said the car, a 1993 Oldsmobile Cutlass, was traveling slowly when it crashed through the fence and into the pond.

The vehicle came to rest in waist-deep water. South Dakota State University professor Don Crowe was traveling close behind the couple, and he made the 911 emergency call and immediately waded out to assist the young people, who were still in the car. He said he first helped the man to the shoreline of the pond, then returned to get the young woman out of the vehicle.

The passenger was Shaun Norem, 24, an Iowa resident.

The water in the murky, algae-filled pond was waist deep, and the hood of the vehicle was actually submerged.

The Oldsmobile was later pulled from the water by a towing team from Dakota Service of Brookings.

Although the car’s exterior was not badly damaged, the vehicle will likely be a total loss as a result of water damage.