Oklahoma Highway Patrol Retrieves Stolen Vehicle Submerged in Lake After Fisherman Hits It With His Boat
The boat ramp is closed. That’s the message some folks received over the weekend at Guthrie Lake in Oklahoma. That’s because an Oklahoma Highway Patrol dive team was busy using the ramp to retrieve a stolen vehicle that they found submerged in the lake over the weekend.
According to local police, a fisherman discovered the vehicle at about 6:30 a.m. on Monday. He found it when he was backing his boat into the water and hit it.
“It actually stopped me and jerked me around and it was metal so I knew it was something that wasn’t supposed to be in the water,” the fisherman, Jesse Martindale, told News 9.
At first, using his live scope, he and his friend Nick Smith thought the vehicle was a red van from the 1980s or 1990s. It turned out to be a blue Nissan Pathfinder.
“I was like, oh, look, there is a there’s a, there’s a vehicle ended up being a van, full size van,” said Smith.
The fishermen contacted police, which led to officials to call out a dive team
The fishermen contacted the Guthrie Police Department and showed them a picture of the submerged vehicle. They also showed police how deep it was, and marked the vehicle with a buoy, according to KOCO News.
Oklahoma Highway Patrol divers later went into the lake to check the vehicle. They found nothing of note inside. Police later stated that someone had reported the vehicle stolen out of Oklahoma City.
Investigators are now trying to figure out how the stolen vehicle ended up in the lake. The fisherman, on the other hand, is more concerned about others’ safety. Martindale said that he was only going a couple of miles per hour when he hit the Pathfinder. However, if someone had been standing up when the boat hit the submerged vehicle, the impact would have “tossed them off the boat for sure.”
