MARTIN COUNTY, Fla. — Investigators have yet to release the names of two people who died after their vehicle apparently crashed into a pond in Martin County recently.
The two victims, a man and a woman, were found Monday morning in a waterway at the intersection of Southwest Warfield Boulevard and Southwest Indiantown Avenue.
Later in the day, Martin County Sheriff's Office detectives, with help from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission and Martin County Fire Rescue, were able to locate a car in the pond.
The vehicle was located after using sonar equipment provided by FWC, the sheriff's office said in a Tuesday post on their Facebook page.
Once detectives were able to determine there was a vehicle in the pond, fire rescue personnel sent in their dive team and located the vehicle. They assisted a towing company in removing it from the pond.
Investigators said late Monday afternoon they do not suspect foul play in this case and believe the people died after the vehicle crashed into the water, possibly Saturday night.
"From what we saw, it looks like the vehicle ... maybe didn't make the curve on the road back there and ended up in the water," Martin County Sheriff's Office Major John Cummings said.
The sheriff's office said both occupants of the vehicle have been identified, and they are awaiting the notification of next of kin.
The cause of death for the victims has not been released.
The bodies have been taken to the medical examiner's office for an autopsy.
The crash has prompted a call from a former state lawmaker for more guard rails.
"I feel the next thing to do is to guard rail the state," former state Rep. Irv Slosberg, D-Boca Raton, said.
He has been a witness to the deadly mix of cars and Florida waterways claiming too many lives.
The former lawmaker pushed a bill through the Legislature that installed guardrails along South Florida highways and into rural regions.
"I feel the state needs to be guard railed from the canals," Slosberg said. "It's extremely dangerous not having guard rails [along] all the canals in the state of Florida."
Slosberg said the safety measures led to a steep drop in fatalities and believes more barriers are needed to prevent tragedies like this.
"There's a lot of work to be done to keep our roads safer," Slosberg said.
According to the Drowning Prevention Coalition of Palm Beach County, vehicles crashing into bodies of water is considered the third-leading cause of drowning deaths, behind pools and the ocean.
A state law was passed six years ago to install guardrails along roads near waterways where a person has died from a crash.
Called Chloe's Law, it's named for Chloe Arenas, a student at the University of Central Florida who died after crashing into a waterway in 2015.