Five children involved in underwater car horror

Rescuers raced against time in a frantic battle to free five children trapped in a submerged car that veered off a highway ramp and into a freezing pond, smashing windows to get inside even as a tow truck winched the vehicle out.

One of the children, Zenavia Rennie, five, later died, Minnesota State Patrol said.

The car was under water for up to 45 minutes after the crash in St Louis Park, a western Minneapolis suburb.

City spokesman Jamie Zwilling said the children were unconscious and unresponsive when pulled from the vehicle. No details of the surviving children’s condition were available.

The driver of the car – mother and stepmother to the children – managed to escape from the vehicle and a witness described seeing her in the pond screaming for help.

“The car was underwater, and she must have been standing on top,” said Jeff Robertson, who lives nearby, said. “That pond is eight or nine feet deep and the water was at her knees.”

State patrol officer Lt Eric Roeske said the car angled left off the ramp and plunged down a slope into the pond about 50 yards from the road. He said there was no guardrail separating the pond from the ramp.

The driver was Marion Guerrido, 23, of Brooklyn Centre. Zenavia was in the car with the other children, Aliyana Rennie, one, Zarihana Rennie, six, Amani Coleman-Guerrido, five, and Alarious Coleman-Guerrido, seven, all from Brooklyn Centre.

Lt Roeske said the first victim was pulled from the water about 25 minutes after the crash was reported at about 6.10am local time yesterday. Rescuers pulled the children out slowly, one by one, and the last was not removed until they had been in the water 45 minutes.

[comment]A police diver at the scene.[/comment]

Passers-by tried to rescue the children before police arrived, but the 1998 Pontiac Grand Am was submerged in about 9ft of cold water. Lt Roeske said the “incredibly cold, nearly freezing-temperature water” would have made it difficult for anyone to reach the children and came up to the neck of one would-be rescuer who stood on the roof of the car.

Police said there was no indication that Ms Guerrido intentionally drove into the water and experts are investigating the cause of the crash.