Crash Sends Car Into Charles River

It was a beautiful day to be on the river yesterday, but Harvard rowers were surprised when a blue Oldsmobile took to the water, too.

A panel truck and an automobile collided at Memorial Drive and Western Avenue, a block east of the married students' dorms, at 3 p.m. The impact of the collision flipped the Oldsmobile through a green iron fence and into ten feet of the Charles on its top.

The occupant of the automobile walked out of the river and went to the hospital with only bumps on his head.

The Metropolitan District Police, who had eight squad cars, several cycles, a police boat, and an underwater recovery unit at the scene, have not completed their accident investigation yet.

A crowd of several hundred including a school of shells on the Charles watched police struggle for two tours to dredge the car from the river. Two police scuba divers finally attached a tow hook to the submerged automobile and dragged it from the river up the bank of the Charles.

Recovery operations snarled traffic on Memorial Drive and Western Avenue from about 3-5:30 p.m. and completely cut off Mem Drive for ten minutes around 5 p.m. when the O'dsmobile was hauled up the river bank into the street.