A matter of time: Iowa swimmer survives life-or-death car crash

WOODWARD, Ia. — The cold, dark water engulfed Lexie Winnett as she hung upside down in her overturned car in the rushing waters of Beaver Creek in July.

The 17-year-old's head slipped under the water as she unbuckled the seat belt that had yanked at her flesh. She had survived a rollover crash and her vehicle's drop of nearly 20 feet into the creek. In seconds, about 2 feet of water flooded the vehicle as Lexie struggled for air.

​The passenger's and driver’s-side windows of her Toyota Camry Solara had shattered, the airbags were deployed and smoke began rising from the car. The horn honked methodically, and the emergency lights flashed in the darkness.

The Johnston High School senior desperately tried to catch a life-saving breath. One of the state’s best swimmers was alone, and she was about to drown.

“I was mostly thinking of my family. I just thought I was never going to see them again, or any of my friends,” Lexie said, wiping her eyes with her shirt sleeve.

A love for swimming

If anyone in such a predicament could make it out alive, it was Lexie.

She started swimming as a young girl in a Perry summer youth class. She would wave to her grandmother whenever she got out of the pool.

“I’ve always loved it,” Lexie said.

From the beginning, she was drilled on water safety. Her mother, Leslie, a former college swimmer and a current club coach, even taught her children how to extract themselves from a vehicle in the water.

As she grew older, Lexie, who spends about 20 hours weekly in the pool, became a dominant swimmer. She is ranked No. 3 in the state in the 50-yard freestyle and has set her sights on qualifying for the state championship meet on Nov. 7 in Marshalltown.

Like all swimmers, Lexie is used to performing quick action under pressure. When the starter's horn sounds, swimmers must leap out of the blocks. She races against the clock in every race, where fractions of a second can make a difference in a win or defeat.

This situation, too, was a matter of time. But unlike her races, this was about survival.

There’s a bridge out

She had gone to a swim club dinner that night and was returning home about 9:50 p.m. by way of a rural Dallas County road. A bridge on that road, about 3 miles from her house, had been demolished several years earlier by a vote of the Dallas County board of supervisors. At the time, the V Avenue/Beaver Creek bridge was in deteriorating condition, and about 20 vehicles crossed it each day, according to county records.

But Lexie didn't know that until it was too late. She had encountered road construction on her original route, and she followed directions from her GPS, which rerouted her down the dark, isolated stretch of road.

“Before I knew it, there was no bridge,” Lexie said.

Her Toyota was going about 35 mph when it careened off a 4-foot tall mound of dirt and grass, then plummeted down the creek bank, according to the police report. The car struck a support from the old bridge, smashing the hood, and it landed upside down.

Her seat belt had pulled on her body, bruising her, as the car crashed. Water poured through the broken side windows and quickly filled more than half of the vehicle with water.

“I was thinking, ‘This is going to be it,’" Lexie said. “But I told myself that this wasn’t going to be the day.”

She remained calm.

“I’m used to being under water and having my head under,” Lexie said. “I didn’t freak out from that. I just knew I had to go.”

She unbuckled herself, then desperately stretched a leg toward the passenger window at her right side and felt a pocket of air on her foot. She pushed toward it.

Survival skills

One of the fundamental techniques swimmers master is the flip turn.

It happens in every race, when an athlete needs to keep in motion during a turn, without sacrificing time. The swimmer approaches the wall of the pool, does a somersault-like motion and pushes off with his or her feet. The force propels the swimmer through the water efficiently.

The stakes were much higher that July night

Lexie remembered her mother's instruction: Let the water start to flow into the vehicle and be ready to push on the door.

A version of the flip turn toward the window — and life itself — offered her escape.

She pushed off the car seat, submerging, then ducked and wriggled out the side window.

"Thank God you know how to do flip turns," her mother said.

Worry at home

Lexie waded to the water's edge, and climbed up the creek bank.

She searched for her gold iPhone — a Christmas gift from her parents — so she could notify them, but it had floated away.

So she removed her flip-flops and ran down a gravel road to the nearest house with lights — about a mile and a half. As she jogged, she heard animals moving in the trees. She tried not to look toward the noises.

“I just kept telling myself, ‘Just a little bit farther,’" she said.

Her mother knew something was wrong when her daughter didn’t arrive home on time.

It was a short drive from Waukee, and it was unlike her not to call if she was delayed.

“I just had a gut feeling that she was in an accident,” Leslie said.

After Lexie called her parents, Leslie, who has emergency medical training, drove to pick up Lexie and take her to the hospital. On the way, she thought about the prospect of her daughter being trapped and dying in a creek. Drowning, she thought, was the worst possible way for a swimmer to die.

Her parents initially thought this might have been a simple case of Lexie putting the car in a ditch.

Lexie's father, James, loaded gear for pulling out the car: a spare tire, a tow rope, a jack. He started driving, looking for the wreck.

But when James found it, he saw the Toyota on its roof, sitting in about 3 feet of water. He realized he wasn’t going to be able to pull out the battered vehicle.

“There was not one straight piece of metal on it,” James said.

A photo he took that night shows the vehicle half-submerged in the water, its lights still blazing in the summer night.

At Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines, an examination found that Lexie had bruises and cuts on her legs, as well as a shoulder-to-hip bruise from the seat belt she had worn.

“I believe there was a higher power at work,” her mother said.

A doctor who treated her who splits time between Des Moines and Seattle told Lexie: “We need more self-saving rescues. God was testing you to make you strong,” her mother recalled.

Traces of that night

More than three months later, what might have been still haunts Lexie and her parents.

Earlier this month in the family's dining room, James turned toward his daughter and said that to this day, he's amazed that everything turned out OK.

"Getting to the accident was a new reality," her father said. " ... Had we not known you were down there and trapped inside the vehicle, my thoughts were, 'I don't know when I would have found you.'"

The family is now suing Dallas County, alleging the missing bridge was inadequately marked. The sheriff's report states that Lexie was driving too fast for the conditions, but she was not ticketed in the accident.

The water swept away most items from Lexie's car. But one was salvaged: a metal cross with a pattern of Celtic knots.

It was a confirmation gift that Lexie received from her mother two years ago. The cross has a clip on its back to attach it to a car visor, to serve as a reminder of faith and an emblem of protection for a young driver, according to Sue Greenwood of Divine Treasures, a Catholic gift shop in Des Moines.

Traces of the mud from the accident linger on its metal surface.

Lexie now drives a four-door Camry. The cross is clipped to her driver’s side visor.