By Jonann Brady
The woman, who asked that her name not be used, took her stepfather Walter Meyn to pick up her mother at the hospital and left her 18-year-old son Joseph Geddes and his friend Matthew Bates alone in the house.
When she returned she found the disturbing scene and Meyn found his 1986 Subaru Brat gone.
According to the story Geddes and Bates told, they were sitting on the porch and had turned on the truck's ignition in order to listen to the radio. The truck lurched forward and slid the 40 feet into the canal, said the boys. Bates, who was in the front seat, was trapped inside the truck as it sunk in the muck. He ended up kicking out the front windshield and freeing himself, suffering only a deep cut on his arm.
"He was lucky," said Geddes' mother, who added that the boys, neither of whom have a driver's license, walked to Bates' house in Freeport to treat his wound.
Though the accident happened on Monday, the truck couldn't be dredged until Wednesday evening, said Meyn, who finally tracked down a police diver to free the car and an affordable tow truck driver to haul it out.
The truck was burying so far in muck that the diver took 20 minutes to find it in the 20-foot-deep, 45-degree water.
"[The diver] couldn't breathe it was so cold," said Meyn, 58, also of Baldwin.
Upon discovering that his truck was submerged, Meyn said, "I wasn't too happy, I'll tell you that....I got enough problems."
When asked if his truck would survive, Meyn said, "Are you kidding? It's full of salt water and the engine is warped."
But he was thankful that Bates survived. "It could have been much worse. He could have died," said Meyn.
Neither boy was available for comment, and Geddes was "AWOL," said his mother, who requested copies of photos of the truck being dragged from the water.
"I'm going to blow them up and make a wall of shame," she said. "I hope [the boys] are mortified."
