MILL CREEK — The swimming pool was warm.
The nearby pond was icy.
For three Archbishop Murphy High School swim team members, the distinction melted away in the early afternoon of Dec. 5.
Tyler Mayerchak, Erik McCaughan and Gabe Benedetto had finished a morning swim practice at Mill Creek Country Club and decided to spend a little time soaking in the hot tub.
Later, they were driving in separate cars along Village Green Drive on their way to lunch at a nearby sandwich shop when they saw the flashing blinkers of two cars parked alongside a golf course pond.
They parked and ran down to the edge of the pond, where they saw a car partially submerged.
“You could barely see the roof of the car,” said Benedetto, a junior.
They pulled off their shoes and ran into the pond, the cold water hitting the middle of their thighs. “We just jumped in there as fast as we could,” said Mayerchak, a senior.
Arriving at the submerged car, they found Billy Byerley and another, unidentified man, reaching into the driver’s side window to help a 74-year-old Mill Creek woman.
Byerley, 20, an employee at the country club’s restaurant, was working in the banquet room when he saw the woman’s car drive into the pond, a stone’s throw from the restaurant.
He ran to the pond, where he found the other man already on the scene. The swim team members arrived seconds later.
Water had filled the car, but the woman’s head was still above the water. Fearing the car might sink further, the men decided to pull her out as quickly as possible.
“We had to take her seat belt off, and the door wouldn’t open because it was already so full of water,” Byerley said.
So, with help from the students, the group pulled her out of the driver’s side window.
“At that point, all of us helped carry the lady up on to the shore — onto the embankment and got blankets on her,” Benedetto said.
Once she was safely out of the water, Byerley returned to his job at the country club. The boys stayed with the woman, helping her warm up inside Mayerchak’s car.
The woman told medics she didn’t need medical attention after the rescue, said Autumn Waite, spokewoman with Snohomish County Fire District 7.
Mayerchak drove the woman to her house nearby.
“It was just kind of a reaction that I just have to do anything to get her out of the car,” said McCaughan, a senior. “I feel like I did my job for the day.”
Oscar Halpert: 425-339-3429, ohalpert@heraldnet.com
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