[Southsider2k12]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...ArticleID=27494

Woman drowns after vehicle lands in pond

Stan Maddux
For The News-Dispatch

NEW BUFFALO, Mich. - An Illinois woman's car veered off Interstate 94 on Monday morning and landed in a pond where she drowned.

The car apparently went out of control due to icy roads, authorities said.

Srisangud Tulayasook, 75, apparently was heading to Four Winds Casino Resort outside New Buffalo, Mich., judging by pamphlets recovered from her submerged PT Cruiser.

At about 6 a.m., police were called to the Indiana-Michigan line after the woman used a cell phone to call a 911 dispatcher, saying she was in a pond and her car was filling with water. La Porte County Sheriff's Deputy Andy Hynek was handling another crash nearby and responded to the scene just north of the state line.

There was just a thin glaze of ice on the water, and Hynek and two other emergency responders waded out to the car about 40 feet off the shore in about 5 feet of water. Hynek said the woman had already perished.

It appears Tulayasook tried getting out of the car because the windows beside the driver's seat and one next to a rear passenger seat were down.

"A witness on the scene saw her kind of moving around in the car before she had called 911," Hynek said.

A hook from a tow truck was extended to pull the car out of the pond.

Hynek said Tulayasook owned a second residence near the lakefront in the Michigan City area, but the investigation shows the woman was driving from her primary residence in Illinois to the casino.

Police in the area were handling several other accidents about the time the accident occurred. Light snow apparently melted upon contact with the warm pavement, then froze in the cold temperatures.