Hero’s wife thinks his police training and instincts kicked in
By B.C. Manion
Carolyn and Joe Sentelik of Zephyrhills had just bought a boat and were scouting out a marina where they could use it.
They decided they would spend part of their Sunday just watching boaters at a marina and then grab a bite to eat.
They had intended to go to Clearwater, but while en route decided instead to go to Dunedin.
“There’s some sort of divine intervention as to why it happened the way it did,” Joe said.
“I think things happen for a reason,” Carolyn agreed.
The couple had spent some time on the morning of Aug. 29 looking at boats and watching people launch them, before heading to Bon Appetit Restaurant for lunch, Carolyn said.
They had just ordered their drinks when they heard a terrible noise, she said.
“We heard a screech and a thump. It was a very odd sound,” she said. It was the kind of sound that signals “something very, very horrible had happened.”
“We heard a woman scream, “Someone call 911.”
Joe, a former police officer, didn’t hesitate. He took off running toward the sound, and when he got there, he saw a 1995 white Mercury Marquis had plunged over the seawall into the water.
The driver was 89-year-old Joseph Schlesselman, who was accompanied by his 86-year-old wife, Ruth.
As the car began to sink, Joe Sentelik dove into the water to attempt a rescue. Another man also jumped in, and as both men attempted to get into the sinking car, a third man with a boat came along and hurled a fire extinguisher through the rear window – creating a hole the size of a dinner plate, Carolyn said.
“I could see a person in the car, in the front,” Carolyn said. “I thought I was going to see a man die right in front of me. It made me feel sick.”
After the fire extinguisher broke through the window, Joe used his hand and his fist to break away enough glass to get his body through, Carolyn said.
Once he got in, he tried unlocking the backseat doors, but was only able to get the backseat door on the passenger seat unlocked.
“It was chaotic and crazy and traumatic,” Carolyn said.
“He went down three times,” she said, tugging at the driver – but couldn’t get him loose.
“I was screaming for him to get out. I was afraid he was going to be killed,” Carolyn said. She was especially worried because Joe suffered a heart attack in May and because he’s on blood thinners, he was bleeding profusely from cuts that he got from the glass.
Joe said everything happened so quickly he’s not sure exactly who did what.
He knows another rescuer was able to get in and to cut the driver and his wife free from their seatbelts.
That man also helped to push the driver out of the car, and Joe pulled the driver out the rest of the way – loading him onto a nearby boat.
Someone else pulled the woman to safety.
The elderly woman was so small, Carolyn didn’t even realize there was anyone else in the car.
Once the couple was safe, Joe used a rope to pull himself out of the water. He cut his feet on the barnacles as he climbed the marina wall.
There was blood gushing everywhere, Carolyn said. “It was kind of gory.”
After the rescue, the driver told deputies he had pulled into a handicapped parking space and his foot slipped from the brake pedal onto the gas, causing the car to plunge into the water, according to a Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office report.
The report also identified the other rescuers. They were Eric Corum, 42, of Tarpon Springs and Courtney Douthit, 32, of Dunedin.
Once they were out of the water, the couple was transported to Mease Dunedin Hospital, where they were treated and released.
Joe was taken to the same hospital, where emergency room personnel scrubbed out the tiny pieces of glass that were embedded in his skin, and used tweezers to take out the larger pieces.
Besides hospital bills the couple expects to receive, Joe’s cell phone was ruined – and his contact list was destroyed.
Carolyn said they received a thank you note from the couple’s son.
The Aug. 31 letter, from James J. Schlesselman, of Pittsburgh, Pa., expressed deep appreciation from himself and his brother. In part, it notes that without the rescuers’ intervention, “Our mom and dad would have undergone a terrifying death, drowning while trapped in their car under water.”
The son also volunteered to cover any of the Senteliks’ expenses, but the couple declined the offer.
“I’m just glad they’re all right,” Joe said. “For the last 10 seconds their heads were under water.”
The rescuers barely got the couple out before the car was totally submerged. The entire rescue probably lasted about three minutes, he said.
Carolyn, executive director of the Florida Hospital Zephyrhills Foundation, said she is tremendously proud of her husband.
She said she told him: “You are a much better person than I could ever hope to be because I’m not sure I could do what you did.”
She’s still in awe. “It was incredible,’’ she said.
By the way, over Labor Day weekend the Senteliks took their 22-foot angler out for their first spin.
They launched it from the Dunedin Marina.
