By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
The Wood County Sheriff’s Office is continuing its search today for the driver of a car found overturned in a water-filled ditch west of Bowling Green.
The sheriff’s office was notified by a passerby Tuesday around 7 a.m. of the car upside down in the ditch along Poe Road, just east of Range Line Road.
A water rescue team and drones were used throughout the day Tuesday to find the driver and any possible passengers from the vehicle. Alerts were posted on Code Red and by the sheriff’s office asking that anyone who saw the accident occur, or provided a ride to anyone walking in the area, to contact the sheriff’s office at 419-354-9001.
The investigation showed that the westbound red Oldsmobile Intrigue failed to maintain its lane, running off the roadway to the north and coming to rest upside down in a ditch with water that is at least waist-high.
Wood County Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn said this morning that the driver’s cell phone was left in the car, and the back window of the vehicle was broken out. It’s unknown if the driver was thrown from the vehicle or if he escaped the car through the broken window, the sheriff said.
“No one has seen the person who we think was in the car,” Wasylyshyn said. And the person thought to be driving the car has not contacted his family since the crash, he added.
On Tuesday, Perrysburg Township Fire Department’s water rescue team searched the ditch, while sheriff’s deputies and firefighters walked the area, and drones searched from the sky, according to Chief Deputy Eric Reynolds.
The water in the ditch is moving swiftly, Reynolds said.
The drones were sent up again today when daylight returned, and sheriff’s auxiliary members are continuing the search along the ditch bank.
“We don’t know that he’s in the water,” Reynolds said. “But if it was our loved one, we would want every means exhausted” to find the driver.
“We’re kind of at a loss,” Reynolds said.
