Now that’s car pooling! Swimmer saves 69-year-old driver who smashed through the window of an LA Fitness gym in his Toyota sedan plunging the vehicle into the pool
- Physical therapy aide Noah Schlenke and another rescuer freed the driver from his vehicle after he became trapped inside under water
- The shocking incident happened at the LA Fitness near Aurora Avenue North and 132nd Street in Seattle’s Haller Lake neighborhood
- Police said the elderly man was parking his car outside the gym when he accidentally stepped on the gas pedal instead of the emergency brake
- Fortunately no one was injured during the incident
Physical therapy aide Noah Schlenke’s quick thinking helped save the life of an elderly motorist Monday morning when the unidentified 69-year-old driver crashed his car through a window at an LA Fitness gym and ended up submerged in a pool
A Seattle man’s quick thinking helped save the life of an elderly motorist Monday morning when a 69-year-old driver crashed his car through a window at an LA Fitness gym and ended up submerged in a swimming pool.
Noah Schlenke, a physical therapy aide and avid swimmer who also works as a lifeguard, was one of two rescuers who jumped in the pool and freed the stunned driver from his Toyota sedan around 8am.
The harrowing incident happened at the LA Fitness near Aurora Avenue North and 132nd Street in Seattle’s Haller Lake neighborhood.
Seattle Police said the elderly man was parking his car in a nearby handicap space outside the gym when he accidentally stepped on the gas pedal instead of the brake.
The mistake caused him to accelerate out of control before smashing through a glass window in the pool area.
Schnenke was one of three people swimming laps in the laned pool when the motorist’s car plunged into the water.
A tow truck operator helps remove a vehicle that crashed into the swimming pool at LA Fitness in Seattle
The shocking incident happened at the LA Fitness near Aurora Avenue North and 132nd Street in Seattle’s Haller Lake neighborhood
Seattle Police said the elderly man was parking his car in a nearby handicap space outside the gym when he accidentally stepped on the gas pedal instead of the brake
Schnenke was one of three people swimming laps in the laned pool when the motorist’s car plunged into the water
’My first instinct was like, “Oh my God, there was someone in that lane,”‘ and to make sure that person is not under the car,’ Schlenke told Komo News.
None of the swimmers or the driver were injured.
Schlenke and one other swimmer went under the water to free the driver who was still sitting in the car.
‘We opened the door and we’re like, “Hey you gotta get out, you gotta get out!”‘ Schlenke said. ‘And he just kind of looked at us and he still wasn’t quite understanding where he was. So, the guy I was with actually just came in and reached over and grabbed him and pulled him out.’
A tow truck operator helps remove a vehicle from the pool. Fortunately no one was injured in the incident
Schlenke works as a lifeguard in addition to being a physical therapy aide
Once everyone was safely out of the pool, two tow truck drivers from Dicks Towing showed up spent about 30 minutes trying to hook up their utility cables to the sedan to pull it out of the water and back through the window it came from.
‘I’ve never done anything like this, but I’ve been in situations just as bad as this one,’ tow truck driver Irvin Escalante told KOMO.
The gym was forced to close its doors temporarily Monday morning while authorities investigated the incident, but it reopened again later the same day.
The shocking incident happened at the LA Fitness near Aurora Avenue North and 132nd Street in Seattle’s Haller Lake neighborhood