Luisa Castro, a woman who was driving near South Padre Island at over twice the legal alcohol limit, was saved from drowning by four current Iowa State University and two former players on Spring Break.
Among her rescuers were current ISU football players Jack Spreen, Josh Jahlas, Spencer Benton, and Anthony Lazard. Former players Matt Swoyer and Joe Doran of Paton, Ia., also assisted in the rescue.
According to Josh Jahlas (a reserve linebacker), the Iowa State students were chilling on their hotel balcony when they saw Luisa’s car run into the Laguna Madre Bay. Jahlas called to his friends Spreen, Benton, and Doran who then rushed into the lagoon and swam up to the car. We’ll let the Des Moines Register take it from here:
Soon they got to Castro, who was trapped in her car and trying to get free.
The three fought to break her loose, punching at the vehicle’s front window. She kicked at it. Nothing seemed to work.
“I was getting worried that we were going to watch this girl drown to death, because no matter how hard we were hitting it, it wasn’t cracking or spidering for a while,” Lazard said.
Castro managed to break a small hole in the front windshield, and the three men took it from there. They created a large enough gap to pull her out.
Here’s a photo the young bucks on Cloud 9, tweeted by their very own school.
https://twitter.com/ISUWOPA/status/710285001124806656
We reached out to Anthony Lazard (left) on Twitter and he verified that those mean looking bandages on his arm were from elbowing through the glass. But like any badass would say, he told us the bandages were overkill. We don’t buy that for a second.
According to police, there is no question that Luisa Castro would have died if it weren’t for the help of the good samaritans. “That car completely sank in less than a minute and if not for them jumping into the water and pulling the driver out, she would most certainly have drowned,” officer Michael Schiltz told the The Register.
Stories like this are absolutely amazing and incredible to read. Despite what people might think, not all Spring Breakers are booze-drinking, drug-using millenials with no regard for others. I know that COED is as guilty as anyone in terms of covering the savages of Spring Break more than feel-good stories like this, but that’s why we think it’s also important to shed light on these dudes. They literally saved someone’s life. That’s something they can always be proud of.
As for Luisa, even though she’s being charged with drunk driving, she’s incredibly grateful to the Iowa State dudes.
“They really are heroes, and I am forever grateful for what they did,” Castro said in a telephone interview with the Register Thursday.
