An Ottawa woman says she was one of a handful of bystanders who helped two men to shore after their vehicle crashed into the water at Mooney’s Bay on Friday. Lesley Tomlinson, a high-school teacher in Ottawa, says she was on an early morning run at around 5:40 a.m. when she saw a car screech through the intersection of Walkley Road and Riverside Drive and into the waters of Mooney’s Bay. “I was obviously shocked,” she said. “It was one of those, like, I can’t believe this just happened. And my sort of first thought was, how am I going to help these people?” Ottawa police were on the scene following the collision, although the circumstances surrounding the crash are currently unknown. Tomlinson says a car pulled over — its occupants, it turned out, were friends of the passengers who now found themselves in the water and had been following behind them on the road. “One of the women who got out of the car went down to the water right away and swam out to the car, and she helped get the driver out.” Another woman emerged from a nearby home and called 9-1-1, Tomlinson says. Meanwhile, the driver of the vehicle began to swim to shore and the woman who had jumped in the water had made her way to the passenger side. “At that point she yelled, ‘He cannot swim,’” Tomlinson said. Another woman then entered the water to help, and Tomlinson says her instinct took over. “I’m a not a strong swimmer, but some 30-odd years ago, I was a teenager and I was a lifeguard,” she said. “You don’t lose those skills over, you know, a lifetime, and so I told her I would go.” Tomlinson says she made her way down the embankment and into Mooney’s Bay. When she reached the passenger, Tomlinson provided clear and assertive directions to keep him from panicking and potentially endangering others. “I told him he was not to touch me. I told him that I was going to lay him on his back, and I was going to hold his head, and I was going to swim to shore, and so the woman who was with him helped me get that,” she said. “He was in very deep shock and was very compliant, and so I swam him to shore, and the women held onto his arm and also helped get him to shore. And the other woman had been helping at the shore getting the driver out of the water.” “All I was thinking when I was swimming, is ‘I got to get there,’ and then, you just do, right?” Tomlinson said. “I had a skill that could be used, and so I used it.” By the time the three of them had reached the shore, emergency crews were already on the scene. “It was actually unnerving because just as we got him turned over in the water, the car fully sank. I mean, it’s not too deep there, so the car didn’t go far, but it was completely submerged,” she said. Ottawa paramedics told CTV News on Friday that the two occupants on the vehicle were assessed and then released without needing to the to the hospital. Tomlinson says she made it home by around 6:15 a.m. Later that day, she used the events of that morning as an important teaching moment for her high school students. “I talked to my classes about the event because I really wanted to press upon them water safety and how it was crucial that you had the basics of just knowing how to keep your head above water because you never know what situation you’re going to be in,” she said. Tomlinson says she commends the friend of the vehicle’s two passengers who first sprang into action. “She really is the star of the show, their friend who jumped in and right in there. I mean, I was a bit trepidatious at the beginning because I wasn’t sure if I should put myself near a sinking car,” she said. “I wish I knew who she was because she was such a superstar.”
