Three Rescued from Watery Crash After Driver Suffers Chest Pain

Article published May 12, 2008
By LAUREN GROVER
Staff Writer
LONGVIEW — Three White Oak residents were rescued from a truck submerged waist deep in a slough Sunday afternoon after the driver suffered chest pain and veered off Highway 42 just south of White Oak.
Charles Williams thought he was having a heart attack when his wife grabbed the steering wheel of their Dodge Ram truck, careening the vehicle down a muddy bank into the water, said Trooper James Ammons, Department of Public Safety, who arrived on scene at about 3:15 p.m.
Williams, his wife, Evangeline, and mother-in-law, Lee Dehowas, 87, were taken by ambulance to Good Shepherd Hospital with minor injuries, Ammons said. “They were shaken up,” he said standing on the bridge over the water.A guardrail extends the length of the embankment and some 20 feet further both directions. Headed north on Hwy 42, Mrs. Williams pulled the wheel right so it wouldn’t hit the guardrail, which might have caused the truck to roll down the embankment, Ammons said. Instead they drove head on into the shallow water.
DPS officials used a floating backboard to remove each person and get them to shore. It is unclear whether they were wearing seatbelts, Ammons said.
Highway 42 between I-20 and River Road was blocked for nearly two hours as
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