GLOUCESTER, Va. — A car that spent more than a decade submerged in the York River in Gloucester County was finally brought back to land Thursday.
The Abingdon Volunteer Fire and Rescue, which serves Gloucester County, said in a Facebook post the Kia Sorento was just off the boat ramp at Gloucester Point. It had gone into the water at that ramp in 2007.
"Apparently, the driver got out of the car with it still in gear and it went straight into the water," the fire service wrote in the post, adding that one of the volunteer firefighters that helped yesterday was at the original call in 2007.
"He remembered being able to see the headlights under the water (still glowing) when he got on scene," the post said.
According to the fire service, the car wasn't able to be recovered for unknown reasons and since then, "hundreds, if not thousands of boats" have had to drive over the wreckage.
This all changed Thursday when a vessel with the Virginia Marine Resource Commission (VMRC) got a hit on the car using its side scan sonar. Divers later located and hooked a cable onto the car so it could be recovered.
The Abingdon Volunteer Fire and Rescue said it was called to provide air fills to the SCUBA divers.
Once the car was recovered, it was full of sediment, requiring the fire service to use hydraulic spreaders to pop the doors open on one side. This allowed crews to flush most of the mud out.