Here's the translation of a newspaper article (AD Rivierenland from the 21st) about the fatal accident. Not a great article, it leaves several questions, but it was more informative than other things we heard.
Thanks for all the kind words people!
Steep embankment turns fatal
Husband Marco (34) couldn’t save life of Lydia (29)
Nieuwland – Marco Doeser risked his own life last Friday night to save his beloved Lydia. In vain. The inhabitant of Hoogblokland managed to get his wife out of the car that was in in the freezing Merwedekanaal (canal) but the steep embankment proves too large an obstacle.
“He wasn’t able to get her on the shore.” Tells an emotional Sam Jansen, who was the first person to arrive at the site of the accident, a mere 300 meters from where he lives. The Nieuwlandener has to stop the desperate, disoriented and severely hypothermic Marco from reentering the water, that had pieces of ice floating in it, in an attempt to save his wife.
Jansen was driving over the narrow Kanaaldijk-Noord (road) from Nieuwland to Meerkerk at a quarter to 10 in the evening of Friday the 17th, 15 minutes earlier than usual. He was going to pick up 2 of his kids who had been to a weekly youth meeting. Almost immediately after turning onto the road he sees a stumbling man in his headlights. One wearing no shoes and completely wet.
Jansen immediately realises something is seriously wrong. The hypothermic man barely manages to say “My wife is in the water.” Jansen puts the man in the back of his car and immediately alerts the rescue services. “They arrived within a few minutes.” Jansen said, who didn’t enter the water himself “It’s too dark over there, you can’t see a thing.”.
Divers from Dordrecht however, do exactly that. At 22:25, 39 minutes past the time the alert was given, they haul Lydia out of the water. She has a weak pulse but dies on Saturday in a hospital in Nieuwegein.
Yesterday in the afternoon there was a technical research of the site “Standard procedure in these situations.”, so says a spokesman of the police. It is still unclear who was driving at the time of the accident.
The Doeser family, counting three children, goes to Free Evangelic Community ‘The Ark’ in Gorinchem. During the service on Sunday a lot of attention was given to the tragedy. “Our hearts go with the family.” Says Adriaan de Vaal for The Ark. “The impact is enormous.” Lydia worked as a nurse in the Beatrix hospital in Gorinchem. Marco (a police officer btw) is left behind with 3 children.
The narrow Kanaaldijk between Arkel and Nieuwland is known for being dangerous. There’s only space for a single car, every few hundred meter there’s a widened spot where vehicles in opposite directions may pass each other. A single steering error can be fatal, between the road and the deep water there’s not any kind of barrier. The road is also poorly lit.
A little bit more than a year ago another person drowned in the same canal, when he rode his bike into it after returning from a visit to his local pub.
