Teen girl dies when car drives into pond

Van Wert independent/OSHP Lima information

OTTOVILLE – Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers are investigating a single-car accident that killed a Rockford teenager late Saturday night.

Brianna Coon, 17, a junior whose home school was Parkway, but who attended Vantage Career Center, was killed when her car slid off the road and into a pond on County Road P in Putnam County, about a mile north of Ottoville (see obituary on Obituary Page).

The girl worked at McDonald’s restaurant on South Shannon Street in Van Wert and had also lived in the Willshire area.

According to troopers, Coon was eastbound when she drove across a bridge and then applied her brakes quickly, causing her white 1995 Dodge Neon to veer off the left side of the road. The car then traveled up a small embankment and into a pond at 24962 County Road P.

Troopers from the Van Wert, Defiance and Lima OSHP posts, along with deputies from the Putnam and Van Wert County sheriff’s departments, spend a lengthy amount of time trying to locate the girl and her vehicle, although officers didn’t have much to go on, only the last known communications tower the victim’s cell phone signal reached during a last call for help to the Van Wert County Sheriff’s Department.

The Putnam County Dive Team arrived at the scene and assisted with removal of the vehicle from the pond, with the girl found inside the car after it was pulled from the water. She was pronounced dead at the scene by the Putnam County coroner and was taken to Loves Funeral Home in Leipsic.

The owners of the pond were not home at the time of the accident, which occurred at around 11:30 p.m. Saturday.

Troopers said the car was submerged in the pond for approximately two hours before a state trooper found a hubcap consistent with those on a Dodge Neon.

The crash remains under investigation, but alcohol is not believed to be a contributing factor in the crash. The victim was also wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash.