OGDEN — A stolen car found Tuesday morning dumped in the Ogden River held nothing but water and fodder for snide remarks by the onlookers and city’s rescue personnel pulling it out.
Such as: “I bet the carburetor is flooded.”
Or: “That’s gonna need a car wash.”
Or: “Someone didn’t want to give it back to the finance company.”
And finally, “That’s what you call mild water damage,” said with a grin.
That last was by Ogden Fire Department Battalion Chief Mike Wood.
The car in question, a white Honda Civic with a wild-cherry air freshener dangling from the mirror, was half-submerged in the Ogden River just east of the bridge where Wall Avenue crosses the river at 18th Street.
Stolen cars are often abandoned empty, and nobody could be seen in this one, so there was no rush to perform a rescue.
Still, Wood said his people were serving a purpose.
“We don’t want someone to see it there and get hurt thinking they need to rescue anyone,” he said, and indeed, one police officer said a woman walking by had offered to do just that early Tuesday until he assured her the car was empty.
Ogden Police Sgt. Nate Cline said the car was reported stolen in Ogden sometime Monday night.
The thieves drove it to Lincoln Avenue and 18th Street, then pushed or drove it off the road, over the new river parkway trail and into the river.
Tire tracks showed where it rolled. The car’s hand brake was set, a hint that it may have been driven into the river.
Cline said the river’s still-heavy flow pushed the car west. By the time it got to Wall Avenue, it had bashed its windshield on a tree trunk and leaked enough water to get stuck on a shallow area of the river bottom.
Passersby spotted it about 5 a.m.
Cline said the car owner was called. He told police he had only liability insurance and couldn’t afford to have it pulled out, “so he’s letting us resolve the situation.”
Wood said the car gave his officers a chance to practice river rescue skills they learned several weeks ago in a training exercise.
“Quite frankly, we could care less about the car, but to have them out doing it for real is really good,” he said.
Two tow trucks from Stauffer’s Towing were brought in, including one giant that is normally used for semitrailer trucks.
At 11:35 a.m., traffic on Wall Avenue was stopped so the giant tow truck could back up against the bridge railing overlooking the car.
The fire department moved its ladder truck’s extension ladder over the car. Engineer/Driver Wade Woolstenhulme, dangling from the ladder’s end like a caught trout, was lowered onto the top of the car.
He looped heavy straps through the car’s side windows and connected the tow truck’s hooks to the straps. The car, gushing water, was lifted over the bridge railing and onto the street.
After OPD Lt. Danielle Croyle looked inside the car’s trunk and found nothing of interest, a third tow truck loaded the car onto its bed.
As the bashed and dented car dripped, the red wild-cherry air freshener still bobbled merrily.
OGDEN -- Traffic on Wall Avenue was shut down for an hour just before noon Tuesday so workers could pull a car out of the Ogden River at 18th Street and Wall Avenue.
Police said the car, a white Honda sedan, was stolen Monday night in Ogden and the thieves pushed it over the Ogden River Parkway path just west of Lincoln Avenue.
The car drifted from Lincoln Avenue to Wall Avenue before it got hung up on a high point in the river bottom. Passersby spotted it at 5 a.m.
Firefighters used one of their ladder trucks to attach cables from a large truck-sized tow truck, which pulled it out of the river.
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