Mother, Child Trapped in Submerged Vehicle After Crash

Victims pronounced dead at hospital

A mother and her toddler died after they became trapped inside a sinking vehicle after a car crash in southeast Fort Worth, police said.

Police said the vehicle was heading east on Collett Little Road when it ran a stop sign and collided with a car heading southbound on the Loop 820 service road. The force of the crash sent the car that ran the stop sign through a fence and into a pond at the Amelia Park Apartments in the 6100 block of Southeast Loop 820, police said.

The woman driving the car called 911 as her vehicle was sinking. She told the Forest Hill police 911 operator that she couldn't open the doors to her car.

Forest Hill police have released a recording of the 911 call, but NBC 5 has chosen not to air or post it because it is too disturbing. 

Witnesses said the victims were underwater for about 30 minutes before divers were able to pull them from the vehicle.

The woman and her 22-month-old daughter were both pronounced dead at local hospitals.

The woman's estranged husband told NBC 5 Friday morning that she had likely just picked up her daughter from child care when the crash took place.

Nathan Brown, who witnessed the crash, said the car "took off straight into the pond" after it was hit by the other vehicle.

Brown said he and his friend, John Piszor, jumped in to help.

"The car was sinking, just slowly sinking, but it was sinking fast enough to where we couldn't really do much," Piszor said.

They said the car was sinking nose first. Piszor said the car's doors were locked and they tried to break the windows.

"There's only so much you can do when you're swimming," he said.

Regina Brumfield, of Arlington, said the woman pulled out in front of her from Collett Little Road.

"I guess she didn't see my car and she just pulled out and she started swerving, and I swerved my car to miss her," Brumfield said. "It's like she just kept swerving. I don't know what happened, and I did everything I could to avoid her."

The Fort Worth Fire Department said a Fort Worth fire crew and Forest Hill police that responded to crash were not able to free the victims.

Divers from the Fort Worth Fire Department later arrived and pulled the child and mother from the car.

The child was taken to Cook Children's Medical Center in critical condition, MedStar said. The mother, who was also in critical condition, was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital. Both were pronounced dead when they arrived at the hospitals.

NBC 5's Scott Gordon contributed to this report.

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