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Last updated on Monday, March 17, 2014
(INDIANAPOLIS) - A woman who was rescued by divers from a submerged vehicle in Fall Creek earlier Friday morning has died, officials confirmed.
Indianapolis emergency crews responded to a submerged vehicle near the intersection of Fall Creek Parkway and Keystone Avenue on Friday morning.
Witnesses told police a woman in an SUV was southbound on Allisonville Road and driving at a high rate of speed before she crossed Binford Boulevard and drove through a clump of pine trees and veered into the water.
Officials said the SUV was going so fast that it went about 35 feet off shore.
Three witnesses who saw the crash got into the water to try to save the woman, and one used a hammer to try to break the vehicle's window, officials said. But the SUV was sinking too fast for them to get the woman out and the rescuers swam back to shore.
Dive teams were able to pull the woman from the SUV, and she was taken to IU Methodist Hospital in critical condition where she later died, officials said. Investigators later identified the woman as Miranda Dermanelian, 25.
A coroner's report listed Dermanelian's official cause of death as drowning.
Rescue crews searched in and around the vehicle but did not find anyone else who needed rescuing.
Investigators said it's not clear why or how the woman ended up driving into the water.
Officials with the Indianapolis Fire Department said they would like to find the people who originally jumped in after Dermanelian.
"We really truly don't encourage anybody to jump in and do that. We realize that these types of situations don't happen every day, so everybody kind of reacts in a different manner, but if something like that occurred, it's vitally important that anybody who has witnessed this stays on scene so firefighters can get an accurate location," IFD Capt. Rita Reith said.
Anyone with information about the incident or the good Samaritans who tried to help the woman is asked to called IFD or the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.
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