In a week of negative news about terrorist shootings and plane crashes, most of us could use a dose of
good news.
It doesn’t get much better than this …
Earlier this month, Brittany George, 19, was driving to her home near Wayne when she came to a bridge on
Caskie Road that she had traveled hundreds of times. Just four miles from home, in the dark, she could
not see the bridge was covered with ice.
"The roads were completely fine until I hit that bridge," she said. "It went haywire from
there."
Brittany, a physical therapy student at Owens Community College, who was driving her dad’s pickup truck,
lost control of the vehicle.
"I remember thinking, there’s a pond in this yard," she said.
Seconds later, the truck had gone through the icy cover of the pond and started sinking into the frigid
water.
Though parts of the incident are foggy to Brittany, others are hauntingly clear.
"I remember the truck filling up with water," she said. "It filled up right away."

Within moments the pickup and Brittany were completely submerged in the deep end of the pond, which is
estimated at 10 to 12 feet.
"I didn’t notice the cold right away. I think I was in shock."
She recalls easily unbuckling her seatbelt, but struggling to find a way out of the truck full of icy
cold water. "I remember pushing around trying to find a way out."
In the darkness, her hands found a hole where the back window of the pickup must have broken upon impact.
She pushed herself out and to the surface. In the blackness, she saw lights shining from a nearby house
and started swimming in that direction. The ice was too thick to break, so she was forced to change
directions.
"When I got out, I remember seeing the headlights in the pond."
Dressed in her soaking wet sweatpants and hooded sweatshirt, Brittany walked to the house she had seen
from the pond.
"I went up to the door and pounded on it."
The homeowner opened, took Brittany inside, and called for an ambulance. With her cell phone at the
bottom of the pond, Brittany remembered her mom’s number and had the man call. Her parents, Kenny and
Cindy George, were at a high school basketball game, and didn’t answer since they didn’t recognize the
number.
So Brittany had the Caskie Road resident call the other number she remembered, that of her softball
assistant coach at Owens Community College. The coach then called her parents, who rushed to the crash
site.
"It seemed like it was 100 miles," Cindy George said of the trip between Elmwood High School
and the Caskie Road home where Brittany was being warmed up by Pemberville EMS.
"She was just shaking like crazy," Cindy said of her daughter.
"The truck wasn’t visible" at the bottom of the pond, her mom said. But that meant nothing.
"A truck can be replaced. She can’t."
Her coach felt the same way – and not just because Brittany is an "All-American" ranked
shortshop with the Owens team.
"In all honesty, Brit is like another daughter to me, so I was pretty shook up," said Kevin
Snyder, who has worked with Brittany for nearly four years. "It could have been just tragic."

The EMS helped her shed the soaking cold clothes, wrapped her in blankets and gave her a warm IV. At Wood
County Hospital, an X-ray and CAT scan showed her only injuries were bruises, cuts to her hand from
either the truck window or the pond ice, and some mild frostbite to her fingers.
"It took forever" to get warm, she recalled. "I think I ended the night with about 12
blankets on."
Though it took her a week or so to get behind the wheel again, Brittany is back at college, and will be
back playing ball when the season rolls around. And her parents will be there to cheer her on.
It doesn’t get much better than that.