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Lifeguards at a public pool tend to have their hands full when it comes to keeping tabs on people in the water. However, the ones who were working at one in Connecticut encountered a very unique situation when they were forced to spring into action after a guy managed to drive his Tesla into it.
Tesla managed to take the automotive world by storm with the electric vehicles that were initially heralded as the future of transportation thanks in no small part to the promise of the self-driving technology that served as a key aspect of their appeal.
It’s been close to two decades since the first Roadster rolled off the manufacturing line, and while the company boasts one of the biggest market caps on the planet (and the largest of any carmaker), its vehicles have been at the center of a fair amount of controversy due to some well-documented shortcomings on the safety and technology front.
Faulty Autopilot has been cited as the cause for a number of crashes and accidents, but there have also been plenty caused by human error, which appeared to be the case with an incident that unfolded in Connecticut on Tuesday.
A Tesla driver was rescued from a swimming pool after driving straight into it
According to New Canaanite, employees at the Steve Benko Pool at Waveny Park in New Canaan, Connecticut were preparing to open on Tuesday morning when those plans were derailed courtesy of a Tesla that barreled through a fence before plunging into the water.
Lifeguards quickly dove into the pool to confirm the driver was alright, and the police were called to assist with an extraction that required them to break a window and open the door before placing him on a backboard so he could be treated at a local hospital for evaluation.
The unidentified driver said he was attempting to park before the car sped into the pool (which was thankfully empty at the time), and it’s unclear if there was some sort of malfunction or if he was responsible for the sudden acceleration. He thankfully walked away unscathed, but the same could not be said for the Tesla, which was removed from the water by the end of the day.
The pool will also be shut down for a “few days,” as officials say they have to drain the water and refill it before reopening the facilities to the public.