The Connection

Reston — A 45-year-old was driving southbound on Wiehle Avenue with his 7-year-old daughter when he lost control at a curve. His car hit the guardrail, traveled down the embankment and over the walking trail and into Lake Anne.

No one was hurt, but it could have been a different story if Beth Hoyos, 47, of Reston wasn’t there to help.

The accident occurred at a location of a blind curve and is a location of frequent accidents, she says.

“Some are pretty bad,” she says. “I’d like to see something done about it.”

She has seen the accidents because she lives in the neighborhood and saw this latest crash happen as she was driving her 14-year-old daughter home from school.

“I was about to turn on to Inlet Court and I was slowing down to turn left into my neighborhood when the car hit the curb, then hit the guardrail and then flew over the hill,” she says. “My daughter and I were stumped. Like, ‘Did that really just happen?’”

She quickly parked her car and told her daughter to stay.

“It looked like it was going to be bad,” she says.

As she ran towards the car, she dialed 9-1-1. To her surprise she realized the car went all the way into the lake.

“The driver of the car was pulling himself out and saying his daughter was in the car,” she says. “I had to admit that I thought I could walk a few steps out, but two steps in and it suddenly dropped very deep. I realized I had to swim.”

She grabbed the 7-year-old and realized that she could swim.

“She was a super little trooper, actually,” she says. “I just gave her a shove towards the shore.”

At that point, people started to gather and helped the girl off the rocks and onto the shore.

“Her father was saying he couldn’t swim and he was starting to look very panicked at that point,” she says. “He kept going under the water.”

THE CAR was almost completely submerged at this point.

“In the process of me trying to help him, he was pushing me under … I wasn’t strong enough to really pull him in,” she says. “I had turned around to shout for help.”

That’s when a 15-year-old named Sebastian entered the water to help her pull the man to safety.

By that time a crowd of about a dozen people were watching, she says. Some had gathered blankets to help warm them up as they waited for EMTs to arrive.

Since the adrenaline-inducing event, Hoyos says people have been calling her a hero; a weird experience for her.

“I didn’t stop to think about it,” she says. “The guy said his daughter was in the car and he didn’t know how to swim. There was really no conscience choice. The only thing I really remember thinking at the time was, ‘Should I leave my boots on or take my boots off.’ The rest of it was sort of an autopilot: go in, make sure they’re OK and get them out.”

She says she didn’t even think it was dangerous at the time she entered the water.

“I thought they just needed some help getting to the shore,” she says. “I definitely didn’t know how deep the water was.”

EVERY YEAR, Hoyos participates in the Reston Sprint Triathlon, a race that requires biking, running and swimming. But she admits that she isn’t the leader of the pack.

“I do some training for the swimming part of it, which I’m not particularly good at,” she says. “In the last triathlon, I just did awful.”

However, she doesn’t know if the father would have been OK if she hadn’t entered the water when she did.

“I think I was more helpful by just being there and being a comfort,” she says. “He reached out and grabbed my hands and I was looking at him in the eyes.”

He called her the following day to thank her for her act of courage. On the call, he told her that her presence helped him get through the ordeal.

Hoyos says credit for the rescue also goes to Sebastian. When she turned around to the shore to ask for help, he was the only one to act.

“There was a scary moment there where the only person that got in was the teenager,” she says. “I’m impressed with him for that.”