21-year-old man dies in Shrewsbury after car flips over into frozen pond

SHREWSBURY, Mass. — A 21-year-old North Grafton man has died as a result of injuries sustained when his car crashed into Jordan Pond in Shrewsbury, local police announced in a release. The victim has been identified as Deven Jared Koenig, 21.

Koenig was the lone occupant of the vehicle and had to be rescued from his overturned vehicle by rescuers using the jaws of life at the frozen pond. He was then transported to UMass Medical Center, where he later died.

"It is surreal, you can't believe it. You keep thinking if you call his cell phone he'll pick up or you wake up and it was a mistake," said Barbara Metcalf Gordon, Koenig's great-aunt. "It's just a shock because this isn't supposed to happen.”

The Shrewsbury Fire Department said it responded around 4:30 a.m. on Saturday after receiving a call that a car had crashed into Jordan Pond and flipped over onto its roof. The car was submerged in roughly four feet of icy water.

Rescuers entered the water wearing cold-water rescue suits and attempted to open a door to free the driver. But the door couldn't open.

Other rescuers arrived shortly after and used a vehicle to pull the submerged car out and rescue the driver. The driver's side window was broken to let the rest of the water flow out and the Jaws of Life were used to extricate the driver through the driver's door.

The driver was rescued nearly 10 minutes after the fire department arrived, they said. Worcester EMS treated the driver on scene and brought him to the hospital.

Preliminary investigation shows that the car Koenig was driving in, a 2017 Nissan Altima, slid off the road during a sharp turn on Lakewood Avenue and struck a snowbank before going airborne into the pond.

"It is a loss we and hundreds of other people will just never get over," Gordon said. "We're devastated, there's no other way anybody could be. It's surreal, and we're crushed, and we'll never be the same."

Cox Media Group