Man Drives Off Ferry Dock, Dies -- Vehicle Plunges Into Sound At Edmonds

EDMONDS - An apparently suicidal 21-year-old man died yesterday when he drove his van off the crowded ferry dock here and plunged into Puget Sound.

Ferry workers said the man pulled up to a ticket kiosk at the foot of the dock and muttered something that sounded like "Do I deserve to live?" He then gunned the engine, sped down the dock at an estimated 50 mph, smashed through a lowered barricade and plummeted off the dock. The van traveled about 40 yards in the air before it dropped front-end-first into the water and slowly sank, witnesses said.

Authorities said the man drowned.

Jason Haugland, a ferry worker, said he stood at the end of the dock holding a life ring and saw the man scramble toward the back doors before the white Chevrolet van was completely submerged.

"He was climbing, trying to reach the back doors, but by that time, the water pressure was too much for him," Haugland said. "I would say he definitely had a change of heart once he realized where he was."

The event occurred at 10:30 a.m. as scores of passengers sat in their cars on the dock, waiting for the ferry from Kingston.

"He was quite a ways behind us," said David Porter of Issaquah, who was waiting in his car at the time. "I put the paper down to see what was going on and he just goes zoom. There was a lot of confusion there for awhile."

Shortly afterward, recreational divers from the nearby Edmonds Underwater Park rushed to the scene to help. It took about 20 minutes to locate the van, which had drifted about 75 yards from the dock, said volunteer diver Kirby Johnson.

It was resting on all four wheels at the bottom of the Sound, about 40 feet below the surface, with its windshield blown out, Johnson said.

Johnson and another diver opened the sliding side door, climbed inside and maneuvered through the seats and floating debris to find the man, who was wedged at the back of the van between a seat and the back door. It took Johnson several minutes to remove the body. He brought it toward the beach south of the dock, where officials tried resuscitation.

"I didn't really feel that I could do much for him," Johnson said. "There was no evidence of consciousness."

The man was pronounced dead at Stevens Hospital in Edmonds.

Ferry officials closed the dock to traffic for about four hours and rerouted one ferry from Kingston to Seattle. This resulted in at least a three-hour delay for thousands of people trying to cross the Sound in the stunning spring weather.

About 15 minutes before the van appeared on the dock, Lynnwood Police took a report that a man matching the man's description had told his wife he might commit suicide and had driven away from his home in a white 1980 Chevy van. Police yesterday were trying to determine whether he was the same man.

Although divers pulled the driver out of the water about 35 minutes after the plunge, it was not until about 1:30 p.m. that a tow truck hoisted the van from the water.

Edmonds Police impounded the van and planned to examine it and its contents, said Edmonds Police Sgt. Ken Jones. They also planned to talk to the man's family, friends and neighbors.

"We're trying to figure out what led up to it," Jones said.

Edmonds fire and police officials responded to the scene, but because the city's own emergency dive team was dismantled in January due to a budget crunch, they asked recreational divers for help. City officials are considering a proposal to restore part of the dive team later this year.

About 45 cars were at the terminal when the van plunged into the water, and the approaching ferry was in sight, about five minutes away.

Lynnette Roman's husband was dropping her off just as the van drove onto the dock.

"He was sitting next to us in the parking lot," Roman said. "He was looking straight ahead. I thought he was waiting for someone to get off the ferry."