Woman, 82, dies after driving car into Itasca pond

An elderly Itasca woman died Thursday morning after driving her car into a pond at Bay Drive in Itasca, south of Devon Avenue, police said.

Mirdza Robeznieks, 82, was taken Alexian Brothers Medical Center Elk Grove Village after she was underwater inside the car for about 20 minutes, said Itasca Deputy Police Chief Robert O’Connor.

The pond is near a townhouse complex where the woman lived with her husband on the 200 block of Bay Drive. Just after 9 a.m., someone called 911 to report the submerged car, he said.

“She was backing out of a driveway that abuts the pond area, and we don’t know if it was a medical condition that caused her to continue backward, or something mechanical,” O’Connor said.

Police and rescuers from the Itasca Fire Protection District tried to pull the woman out of the pond by breaking her car window, but were unsuccessful. She was ultimately rescued by a diving team from the Elk Grove Village Fire Department and Itasca firefighters, he added.

But although Robeznieks was taken to the hospital in critical condition, she was pronounced dead there just after 10:15 a.m.

Two Itasca police officers were also taken to the hospital along with a third officer who drove to the hospital, officials said. All three suffered minor injuries.

Neighbor Jim Runnfeldt said Robeznieks’s husband, Gunnar, suffered bruises and cuts to his head as well, after trying to run after his wife and falling.

“He tried to hold onto the car so it wouldn’t float out, since the pond is only about three feet deep toward the edge,” Runnfeldt said. “But it is nine feet toward the center and that is where the car ended up.”

Runnfeldt said he remained with the Robeznieks family and members of their Latvian church at the hospital, where Gunnar was undergoing X-rays. He added that doctors told the family Mirdza Robeznieks was unconscious when the car initially went into the pond, perhaps explaining why she did not attempt to escape when the car was in shallow water.

“(Gunnar) was the only one who saw the accident happen, but there would have been time for her to get out, and even her seat belt was still on,” Runnfeldt said. “They don’t believe she suffered.”

Police said the cause of the accident is still under investigation, and so is the cause of Mirdza Robeznieks’s death. O’Connor said she will undergo an autopsy at the Cook County medical examiner’s office in the next few days.

Neighbors said they were saddened by the news of the couple, whom they invite to special events and swap spare keys with for emergencies.

“They are such a lovely, lovely older couple,” said neighbor Kathleen Peterson.