Scuba divers Chase Westwood and Tasia Hatch watch a 2007 Ford F-150 as it is towed from Newton reservoir on Tuesday Sept. 12, 2023.
NEWTON – A 2007 Ford F-150 was pulled from Newton Reservoir Tuesday morning just after 9 a.m. The submerged vehicle owner was listed as Paulino Herasmo and the report said it was in the reservoir since Tuesday Sept. 5, 2023.
Tuesday morning was calm and there was not a ripple on the reservoir until the divers took to the water.
Eric Kemp from the Provo office of the U. S. Department of Reclamation was on hand to check for residue if there was a chemical spill.
“I don’t see any oil on the water,” he said after the pickup truck was pulled out of the water. “The bottom of the reservoir was pretty churned up, but I don’t see anything to worry about.”
He said they have four or five vehicles a year going in the water at reservoirs in Utah.
ValJay Rigby, the President of the Newton Water Uses Association, was there with his huge John Deere tractor to help. Using a cable behind the tractor, the pickup emerged from the water.
Tasia Hatch and Chase Westwood from Access Scuba were called to assist by hooking a one-inch cable to the two hooks on the truck.
“The water was quite murky,” Hatch said. “But wasn’t that cold.”
Attaching the cable to the truck from the shore was a difficult task for Westwood, who grabbed the cable and tried for several minutes to attach the cable to the hooks near the front bumper.
It didn’t take much effort for the John Deere to pull the vehicle from the water.
“This is our first successful recovery mission,” Hatch said. “Hopefully, we can have this kind of success in the future.”
The truck was about 20 yards from the shore completely submerged. The divers took direction from a crew on shore to get the correct location of the truck.
The ground crew had used a fish finder and located the truck earlier in their investigation.
The truck’s transmission was left in the neutral position and appeared to have been backed into the reservoir.
The recovery operation took about one hour. A tow truck was called from Preston to pick up the water logged vehicle.