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Woman Rescued From Kissimmee River
By JOE SEELIG
jseelig@highlandstoday.com
Published: May 26, 2006
AVON PARK � An Ellenton woman was listed in good condition after she was rescued from her car in the Kissimmee River at the Avon Park Bombing Range. There are no details of the “harrowing� experience that Jeannine Herget, 62, spent in the river from 2:30 p.m. Tuesday to 9:45 a.m. Wednesday. Herget, who remained in the hospital’s emergency room Thursday, will not be doing any interviews, a hospital spokesman from Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne said.
According to Highlands County sheriff’s deputy John Hood, Herget left Ellenton sometime on Tuesday morning and was heading to northwest Manatee County. She got onto State Road 64 and headed east, he said.
“She apparently became disoriented and drove across (S.R.) 64 and into the bombing range,� a sheriff’s news release states. “Preliminary investigation indicates that she arrived somewhere around 12:30 p.m. and drove around the range for about two hours until she tried to cross what she thought was a creek. She was driving a 2004 Toyota Camry. It turned out to be the Kissimmee River, according to the report. This happened at approximately 2:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Sometime around 9:45 a.m. Wednesda, Chris Graham, with (South Florida Water Management District), who was working in the area, heard her screaming, said Hood. Hood said Herget was rescued by Polk and Osceola county sheriff’s deputies before she was airlifted to Holmes Regional. “She got out of the car and spent the night in the woods just above the car,� said Hood. “She drove off the road onto the bombing range itself � left what roughly resembled a road and drove over an embankment and drove about an eight of a mile and into the river.� Hood said there is no record of Herget entering the bombing range, which logs in visitors at the main gate. She was found 15 miles from any asphalt paved road. Hood speculates she traveled onto some shell rock roads, onto some grass roads and eventually left the grass road. He counted about 25 to 30 alligators along a fairly short distance on the bank of the river. One alligator was swimming around the front of the car and had to be chased away when the car was pulled from the river.
Don Saunders is a planner scheduler with the Kissimmee Field Station for the South Florida Water Management District. He said he was relaying communications Wednesday after an airboater reported the car in the water to a lock tender at No. 65A. He said Graham and another district employee, Dan Dubose, drove to the area where the boater reported the car, but they were on the wrong side of the river. They heard the woman’s cries for help.
Further communications with the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Highway Patrol led to calls to the Okeechobee Field Station, that contacted an employee on an airboat. The airboater arrived and carried Graham and Dubose across the river as a Polk County Sheriff’s Office helicopter arrived to airlift the victim. Graham told Saunders that the woman lost her shoes getting out of the car and cut her feet in the briars on shore.
Lt. Dale Knapp, with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said Thursday that this time of year, as water levels drop, alligators that normally live in marshy areas along the river, migrate into the deeper waters of the river. “I would say there is a large population of big alligators there in that part of the river,� he said. “That area is part of the hunt zone, which begins in August.�
By JOE SEELIG
jseelig@highlandstoday.com
Published: May 26, 2006
AVON PARK � An Ellenton woman was listed in good condition after she was rescued from her car in the Kissimmee River at the Avon Park Bombing Range. There are no details of the “harrowing� experience that Jeannine Herget, 62, spent in the river from 2:30 p.m. Tuesday to 9:45 a.m. Wednesday. Herget, who remained in the hospital’s emergency room Thursday, will not be doing any interviews, a hospital spokesman from Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne said.
According to Highlands County sheriff’s deputy John Hood, Herget left Ellenton sometime on Tuesday morning and was heading to northwest Manatee County. She got onto State Road 64 and headed east, he said.
“She apparently became disoriented and drove across (S.R.) 64 and into the bombing range,� a sheriff’s news release states. “Preliminary investigation indicates that she arrived somewhere around 12:30 p.m. and drove around the range for about two hours until she tried to cross what she thought was a creek. She was driving a 2004 Toyota Camry. It turned out to be the Kissimmee River, according to the report. This happened at approximately 2:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Sometime around 9:45 a.m. Wednesda, Chris Graham, with (South Florida Water Management District), who was working in the area, heard her screaming, said Hood. Hood said Herget was rescued by Polk and Osceola county sheriff’s deputies before she was airlifted to Holmes Regional. “She got out of the car and spent the night in the woods just above the car,� said Hood. “She drove off the road onto the bombing range itself � left what roughly resembled a road and drove over an embankment and drove about an eight of a mile and into the river.� Hood said there is no record of Herget entering the bombing range, which logs in visitors at the main gate. She was found 15 miles from any asphalt paved road. Hood speculates she traveled onto some shell rock roads, onto some grass roads and eventually left the grass road. He counted about 25 to 30 alligators along a fairly short distance on the bank of the river. One alligator was swimming around the front of the car and had to be chased away when the car was pulled from the river.
Don Saunders is a planner scheduler with the Kissimmee Field Station for the South Florida Water Management District. He said he was relaying communications Wednesday after an airboater reported the car in the water to a lock tender at No. 65A. He said Graham and another district employee, Dan Dubose, drove to the area where the boater reported the car, but they were on the wrong side of the river. They heard the woman’s cries for help.
Further communications with the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Highway Patrol led to calls to the Okeechobee Field Station, that contacted an employee on an airboat. The airboater arrived and carried Graham and Dubose across the river as a Polk County Sheriff’s Office helicopter arrived to airlift the victim. Graham told Saunders that the woman lost her shoes getting out of the car and cut her feet in the briars on shore.
Lt. Dale Knapp, with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said Thursday that this time of year, as water levels drop, alligators that normally live in marshy areas along the river, migrate into the deeper waters of the river. “I would say there is a large population of big alligators there in that part of the river,� he said. “That area is part of the hunt zone, which begins in August.�
