Miracle in Disguise: Driver Plunges into Lake
Published: November 24, 2006
Forty-six-year-old Janet Clark was diagnosed with meningitis which is what caused the disorientation she experienced that day. And with the help of her husband, Tim, she’s slowly getting back on her feet. [Up and Running : The Inspiring True Story of a Boy's Struggle to Survive and Triumph]
Tim Clark was away on business Wednesday when his wife Janet was feeling ill.
“She had been sick the night before - had a terrible headache, couldn’t sleep at all. [She] woke up the next morning called into work,” Tim says.
Thinking it was a sinus infection, Janet drove to get an allergy shot. But she didn’t make it to the doctor.
Tim explains, “She’s got a high tolerance for pain, so it usually takes a lot for her to decide she needs to go to the doctor.”
It was worse than she thought. Janet’s temperature was so high, she can’t remember how she drove her car into this lake. She can only recall waking up in a daze thanks to the cold water.
“The water, being 50 degrees, actually did bring the temperature down. It was 102.5 when they got her out of the water,” says Tim.
He says, if she hadn’t plunged her car into the water, her temperature would have continued to spike and could have caused brain damage.
“It was unbelievable she was able to live through all that. We just couldn’t believe it,” he continues.
After Janet was rescued, doctors performed a spinal tap, and determined she has non-contagious streptococcal meningitis. Janet is now on antibiotics, and, Tim says, she’s getting better each day with the support of loved ones.
He describes, “She’s very positive. She has a few headaches and a little bit of a fever, but the doctors are controlling that and are expecting great things from her.”
Janet didn’t want to appear on camera because she’s still recuperating.
Doctors aren’t sure how much longer she’ll have to be in the hospital, but it won’t be too long. She’s already starting to get up and move around.
14 News spoke with Janet Clark and her husband at St. Mary’s Medical Center on Saturday.
Janet Clark is doing much better than she was the day she plunged into the lake; however, she’s still dealing with terrible headaches due to the meningitis she was diagnosed with. It’s causing her to have very high fevers, so high that she could have died. But the cold lake water made her temperature drop from 105 degrees that morning.
Clark says she remembers being sick that morning but can’t remember how she ended up in the lake near the 5300 block of Heckel Road.
St. Mary’s doctors conducted a spinal tap and determined she has a form of streptococcal meningitis. Currently, she’s taking a lot of antibiotics. And the illness is not contagious.
Clark’s family is calling the whole series of events a miracle.
Tim Clark, Janet’s husband, says, “It was all just miraculous to us that all that had happened. The fact that she drove into the pond when she probably had a 105 degree temperature and really needed to bring that fever down.”
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