Water fatalities deemed accidental

Published 10:46 pm Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Two fatal crashes into bodies of water that happened within mere hours of each other in February have been ruled accidental.

The first happened on Feb. 11, when Latasha Dubois, 23, a passenger in a car driven by her husband, London Dubois Jr., 25, reached into the driver’s side floor to grab a small hand-held vacuum that had fallen there, according to an accident report.

As she sat back up, she grabbed the steering wheel, causing the car to careen off Respass Beach Road, through a hedge and into a retention pond just before 8 p.m.

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Neighbors who responded to the scene quickly rescued London Dubois and the couple’s two young children, but Latasha Dubois was not found until a dive team arrived. She was pronounced dead at the Maryview Hospital emergency room.

The vehicle was traveling at 40 miles per hour in a 35-mph zone, according to the report. Latasha Dubois was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the accident, according to the accident report. The children were in child restraints.

The next morning, another fatality happened in a pond off South Quay Road. Police have determined the driver, 52-year-old Daniel Post of Franklin, fell asleep while driving, city spokeswoman Diana Klink said. He woke up when his vehicle went into the pond and called 911 but was unable to tell dispatchers his location. Police found his general location through his cellphone’s “ping” and contacted his family to determine his normal route to work.

Several hours after the accident, an officer assisting with the search spotted slight tire indentations in an old cotton field near New Road, and the vehicle was located in the pond, completely submerged, with Post inside.