CHANHASSEN, Minn. — A metro dive and rescue team was pressed into action after an apparent mishap on a busy highway Monday led to a vehicle going off the road and plunging into a nearby holding pond with the driver trapped inside.
MnDOT cameras captured the aftermath of the incident, which occurred shortly after 11 a.m. on April 24 on Highway 101 near the junction with Highway 212.
Dive team members made their way down the steep banks of the algae-covered pond and four of them commenced search operations. Images from SKY 11 showed four divers working an area of the pond, and eventually a person being pulled removed from the water and taken away in an ambulance.
That driver, identified by Minnesota State Patrol as 71-year-old Kenneth John Blumberg of Eden Prairie, was rushed to U of M Hospital but eventually succumbed to his injuries.
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner later determined Blumberg's official manner and cause of death as an accidental fresh water drowning complicating blunt force injuries suffered in the crash.
A preliminary report posted on the State Patrol website says Blumberg was in his Dodge Grand Caravan traveling westbound on Highway 212 when he went through a red light at Highway 101 and collided with a Honda CR-V traveling northbound on County Road 101.
At that point the Caravan careened off the road, flew down an embankment and entered the holding pond, submerging both the vehicle and driver.
The 52-year-old driver of the Honda was not injured.
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