Ecotrek leader has unexpected adventure with Grand River
Tue, Nov 10, 2009 
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BY BECKY VARGO
bvargo@grandhaventribune.com
SPRING LAKE TOWNSHIP — Cari Draft Elliott had just left Spring Lake Township home en route to Pomona Park in Fruitport to teach this morning's Ecotrek class. She was feeling queasy and starting to feel flushed and lightheaded, she said.
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Elliott started to pull her car over just a short distance from her Boom Road home at around 5:30 a.m.
"The next thing I remember is the calm and the dark," she said. "It was really black out there."
It only took a couple of more minutes for Elliott to realize she was in the Grand River. And it was so dark at that point that she couldn't tell whether or not the car was completely submerged.
Elliott called 911, not sure exactly where she was, then looked at the window.
"My first panic was that this thing was going to sink," she said.
She cracked the window and determined the car was not submerged.
"The water was part-way up the window on my car and my feet were starting to get wet," she said.
Elliott started to crawl out her window and realized the car was not sinking, so she went back for her cell phone and purse, then climbed to the roof of her car. She stayed on top of the roof until emergency personnel arrived a few minutes later, about 5:45 a.m.
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Elliott said as she sat on the roof of her car — which she guessed was in about 3-and-a-half feet of water — she thought about her husband who was out of town on a hunting trip; and her 14-year-old son, who was still asleep at home.
She called one of the people in her class and told them to go ahead without her.
Elliott said a short time later, everyone in her class showed up at the river to make sure she was all right. She asked a couple of them to go to her house and alert her son.
"He's here (at the hospital) with me," she said.
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Elliott was assisted to the shore by Spring Lake Township firefighters, then taken to North Ottawa Community Hospital to be checked over.
A couple of hours later, as her mother was driving her home, Elliott looked over the scene.
"My car went in at an angle," she said. "It's crazy how I missed the sign, the tree, the dock and the seawalls."
