A spring break trip of fun and frivolity took a sharp turn for a group of Iowa State football players, as the trio of Anthony Lazard, Jack Spreen, Joe Doran, saved a woman from drowning.
The group, along with current and former Cyclones Spencer Benton, Matt Swoyer and Josh Jahlas, was vacationing on South Padre Island, Texas, when Jahlas, standing on a hotel balcony, noticed 22-year-old Luisa Maria Castro drive her car into Laguna Madre Bay. Lazard, Spreen and Doran sprinted to save her, jumping into the bay and swimming to Castro’s rapidly sinking car.
Only, no one could seem to get the car open.
“I was getting worried that we were going to watch this girl drown to death, because no matter how hard we were hitting it, it wasn’t cracking or spidering for a while,” Lazard told the Des Moines Register.
Castro cracked a small hole in her windshield, and the trio took it from there, wedging her from the vehicle and handing her off to the waiting arms of Jahlas, Benton and Swoyer.
“That car completely sank in less than a minute and if not for them jumping into the water and pulling the driver out, she would most certainly have drowned,” officer Michael Schiltz told the paper.
Lazard, Spreen and Doran were regarded as heroes. As for Castro? She was arrested. Her blood alcohol level tested at nearly twice the legal limit of 0.08.
Still, Castro thanked the group for saving her life.
“I have no words to express how appreciative I am of them,” Castro said. “Even when I messaged them, I still felt that the words or what I was saying to them to thank them and how grateful I was — it just felt like that wasn’t enough.”
This is what a group of heroes look like. Jumped in and saved someone from drowning in their car. God bless. pic.twitter.com/K7AqG64KtQ
— ISU WOPA (@ISUWOPA) March 17, 2016