Woman rescued from overturned car in Marshall Creek

A Cheney woman is recovering after a crash where her car flipped and landed on its roof in Marshall Creek along the Cheney-Spokane Road.

The crash happened around 8 a.m. Thursday morning.

“The initial report was a car upside down with a warm tailpipe reporting party didn’t know if somebody was in it,” Deputy Chief Brian Anderson with Fire District 3 said.

Deputy Chief Anderson was one of the first responders on the scene.

“We didn’t waste any time, we got everyone coming and planned for the worst and hoped for the best,” Anderson said.

At first, the worst was confirmed when they found a woman was trapped inside the car hanging upside down.

“Her nose and mouth were about two to four inches above water level getting air,” Anderson said, adding he jumped on top of the car while a sheriff’s deputy, a medic and an EMT from AMR ambulance service jumped into the water.

“They broke out the back window, reached in, unlocked the door, we forced the driver’s door against open water, reached in cut the seatbelt and then lifted her out,” he added.

The first responders could feel her feet, her legs were moving and she was talking, though it was clear hypothermia was setting in.

Spokane County Sheriff’s deputies say the 26-year-old cheney woman was on her way to work when she lost control of her car on the ice and it flipped into Marshall Creek. Deputy Craig Chamberlain estimated the woman was in the 40 degree water for about 30 minutes.

Chamberlain added that when she was rescued she was conscious and alert, but if they gotten their a few minutes later it might have been a completely different turnout.