CLEARWATER, Florida — Two Clearwater police officers swam into a pond and pulled an unresponsive driver from a sinking car after reaching the crash before the vehicle disappeared beneath the water, according to body-camera footage and a local report based on information released by the city.
Watch the Clearwater pond rescue
The publisher embed below contains the released Clearwater Police Department body-camera footage. It shows the officers reaching the car, trying the locked door and breaking a window to reach the driver.
Video source: Clearwater Police Department body-camera footage published by Tampa Free Press. If the embedded player does not load, open the publisher's video post on X or use the full local report.
Officers found the car rapidly going under
Tampa Free Press reported Friday that Clearwater Police and Clearwater Fire & Rescue were sent to the pond near McMullen Booth Road and Enterprise Road at 6:34 p.m. The source report identified the first officers at the water as Jonathan Hurt and Hunter Smaldone.
The body-camera recording is timestamped July 30. It shows the white car already deep in the pond as an officer moves through the water toward it. The officers initially tried the driver-side door, but it was locked.
According to the report, the officers tried to speak to the driver through the window and received no response. Hurt then broke the glass, unlocked the door and pulled the woman from the vehicle.
Driver brought to shore as the car submerged
Hurt and Smaldone brought the 45-year-old driver back to shore. The local report said she was transported to Mease Countryside Hospital for treatment; it did not publish a later medical update, and ThinBlueNews is not adding one.
Poor visibility left responders unable to determine from the surface whether anyone else remained in the back seat. A Clearwater Fire & Rescue diver entered the pond and searched the vehicle, confirming that the driver had been its only occupant, according to the account.
The crash investigation remained open when the report was published. No cause was announced in the reviewed source, so ThinBlueNews is not speculating about why the car left the roadway.
The rescue reflects the narrow window officers and firefighters face when a vehicle enters deep water: patrol officers reached the car while part of it remained visible, forced access when the door would not open and moved the driver to shore before a diver completed the safety search.
Readers can find more verified lifesaving work in ThinBlueNews' police rescue news, body-camera rescue videos, first responder heroes and latest news.
Sources, video and image attribution
- Tampa Free Press — “Released Bodycam Video Shows Clearwater Officers Rescuing Driver From Sinking Car,” published July 31, 2026. The report attributes the footage and incident information to the City of Clearwater and identifies Clearwater Police and Clearwater Fire & Rescue as the responding agencies.
- Tampa Free Press — publisher video post containing the released Clearwater Police Department body-camera footage.
Featured-image note: The image is a true frame from Clearwater Police Department body-camera footage published and credited by Tampa Free Press, not a recreation or unrelated representative image. ThinBlueNews resized the complete frame and added narrow neutral side padding for its 1200 × 630 social-image format; it did not synthesize, crop out, or add people, vehicles or incident details.
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