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ninanevermore.
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On Tuesday afternoon we heard the helicopters hovering over the mall, which seemed peculiar. Kat and Scott, who sit closest to the windows, stood up to look up at the sky.
“Are they the police?” asked The Kid. The Kid is 19, and works in our department part time on days that he doesn’t go to college.
“Media,” said Scott. He sat back down and starting typing on his keyboard. “Oh, wow. A car drove into Lake Robbins, and they’re trying to get them it.”
“Lake Robbins? Where’s that?” The Kid asked.
After some research, we determined that it is the small lake in front of the Mall. All the lakes around The Woodlands are man-made, and Lake Robbins looks less natural than most of them. It has a fountain in the middle of it, and an architecturally tasteful bridge arching over it connecting to the Interstate. It never even occurred to me that it had a name, much less that the name considered a lake rather than a manufactured pond with a fountain in it.
The rescue didn’t seem to be going well, since the helicopters were still hovering half an hour later, all for a few seconds footage of a car being dragged out of the water.
A small SUV started driving erratically on the frontage road, then veered off of the road and plunged into the lake. It must have been going pretty fast, because it wound up 75 feet into the lake. Lake Robbins is only about 4 feet deep, so it seemed pretty amazing they were having so much trouble finding the car and getting to the driver.
Joe Ann popped up from over the cubicle wall that separates the Marketing Team from Accounting. She’s pretty feisty for an accountant.
“I’ll bet it was a suicide,” she said.
“Or maybe someone had a stroke or a seizure,” Kat said.
“If they’ve been under the water this long, I don’t think it’s a rescue anymore. I think it’s a recovery,” I said. You rescue people, bodies are recovered.
It was time to go home by then, and everyone agreed that what was happening across the parking lot was sad.
We came in this morning and looked for more details on the Internet.
I am familiar with the hospital, which is just up the road from the mall. My son was born there 6 years ago.
Amanda checked the news later this afternoon. “That woman from yesterday died,” she said.
I pulled the story up on my own computer.
I wondered if they had to make that heartbreaking decision to take her off of life support. After half an hour without air, it seemed unlikely she would have much, if any, cognitive function left. I was glad her family was gathered around her. Even if she wasn’t aware of them, it meant they were there for each other.
It’s funny how life goes on during a typical day at the office, while within a few feet of us a life and death drama was playing out, ending one freeway exit to the north were someone – a husband, a son, or a daughter – gave their consent and a doctor turned off a machine that was breathing for the mother and grandmother pulled from the man-made late that adorns the front of the shopping mall.
But there were no helicopters filming that moment. No flashing lights on rescue vehicles gave it an air of excitement, and no uniformed police officers gave a sound-bite summary of the events. But it had to be profound, dramatic, and traumatic for the people involved.
Still, life goes on. I sent sympathetic thoughts and good wishes out to the family of the woman, and then I clicked off the internet news site and got back to work. Because what else can you do?
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.
.
On Tuesday afternoon we heard the helicopters hovering over the mall, which seemed peculiar. Kat and Scott, who sit closest to the windows, stood up to look up at the sky.
“Are they the police?” asked The Kid. The Kid is 19, and works in our department part time on days that he doesn’t go to college.
“Media,” said Scott. He sat back down and starting typing on his keyboard. “Oh, wow. A car drove into Lake Robbins, and they’re trying to get them it.”
“Lake Robbins? Where’s that?” The Kid asked.
After some research, we determined that it is the small lake in front of the Mall. All the lakes around The Woodlands are man-made, and Lake Robbins looks less natural than most of them. It has a fountain in the middle of it, and an architecturally tasteful bridge arching over it connecting to the Interstate. It never even occurred to me that it had a name, much less that the name considered a lake rather than a manufactured pond with a fountain in it.
The rescue didn’t seem to be going well, since the helicopters were still hovering half an hour later, all for a few seconds footage of a car being dragged out of the water.
A small SUV started driving erratically on the frontage road, then veered off of the road and plunged into the lake. It must have been going pretty fast, because it wound up 75 feet into the lake. Lake Robbins is only about 4 feet deep, so it seemed pretty amazing they were having so much trouble finding the car and getting to the driver.
Joe Ann popped up from over the cubicle wall that separates the Marketing Team from Accounting. She’s pretty feisty for an accountant.
“I’ll bet it was a suicide,” she said.
“Or maybe someone had a stroke or a seizure,” Kat said.
“If they’ve been under the water this long, I don’t think it’s a rescue anymore. I think it’s a recovery,” I said. You rescue people, bodies are recovered.
It was time to go home by then, and everyone agreed that what was happening across the parking lot was sad.
We came in this morning and looked for more details on the Internet.
Montgomery County sheriff's deputies said Celinda Diaz, 59, lost control of her SUV on Lake Robbins Drive near Interstate 45, near The Woodlands Mall, shortly after 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.
A man…said he saw the driver swerve off the road and go into the pond. He jumped in to try to help her.
"The only window that was exposed was the back window. I tried to bust the window out and get a hold of her, but I couldn't reach her," he said. "I tried to stick my hand in there to try to feel for her, I couldn't feel anything. At that point, the car started going down."
Witnesses said they saw the driver's head slumped over the steering wheel before the vehicle went under water. A dive team pulled the SUV out of the water at about 5 p.m.
Paramedics performed CPR on her for several minutes before they got a pulse. Diaz was taken to Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital in critical condition and was placed on life support.
I am familiar with the hospital, which is just up the road from the mall. My son was born there 6 years ago.
Amanda checked the news later this afternoon. “That woman from yesterday died,” she said.
I pulled the story up on my own computer.
Celinda Diaz, 59, [was] pronounced dead on Wednesday at 2 p.m. Hospital officials said her family was by her side. Diaz was a mother and grandmother.
I wondered if they had to make that heartbreaking decision to take her off of life support. After half an hour without air, it seemed unlikely she would have much, if any, cognitive function left. I was glad her family was gathered around her. Even if she wasn’t aware of them, it meant they were there for each other.
It’s funny how life goes on during a typical day at the office, while within a few feet of us a life and death drama was playing out, ending one freeway exit to the north were someone – a husband, a son, or a daughter – gave their consent and a doctor turned off a machine that was breathing for the mother and grandmother pulled from the man-made late that adorns the front of the shopping mall.
But there were no helicopters filming that moment. No flashing lights on rescue vehicles gave it an air of excitement, and no uniformed police officers gave a sound-bite summary of the events. But it had to be profound, dramatic, and traumatic for the people involved.
Still, life goes on. I sent sympathetic thoughts and good wishes out to the family of the woman, and then I clicked off the internet news site and got back to work. Because what else can you do?
