Members of the Portage County Water Rescue Team pulled a fully submerged Hyundai Elantra from   the bottom of the Michael J. Kirwan Reservoir at West Branch State Park Tuesday afternoon.
The car had been there since a Feb. 24 incident inch which police say a Ravenna man deliberately steered his wife's car onto the ice before it crashed through, sank and came to rest on its roof.
The owner of the car watched the training exercise from the lake shore as divers bobbed up and down about 350 yards away near a cove on the north side. The car's owner said her husband, whom she is now legally separated from, had the car for several days before it ended up in the frigid water.
Portage County Sheriff's Deputy Mark Millhoff oversaw the dive training Tuesday. Millhoff said the purpose of the monthly training exercise was to remove the car from the lake.
"So it doesn't cause a boating or ecological hazard," Millhoff said. "This one just happened to be out here so we could incorporate the vehicle. We like to train as realistically as possible for all scenarios."
The car came to rest in about 12 feet of water. The dive team performed two dives in February the day it sank to determine if anyone was trapped inside. After the car was confirmed empty, the team placed a buoy and took GPS measurements to insure the vehicle could be found after the snow melted.
The team spent all morning preparing to raise the car to the surface with a 1,000-pound air lift bag so two boats could pull the car to the shore at the west boat ramp off Rock Spring Road.
Sunshine and warm temperatures greeted members of the Kent, Mantua-Shalersville, Ravenna Township, Streetsboro, Suffield and Aurora fire departments along with the Portage County Sheriffs Office and Brimfield Police Department members who took part in the training.
Dave Moore, the dive team's commander, said not all the divers present took part in rigging the airbag to the car.
"One diver on a rope line can cover more area quicker and use less air, which is important, than multiple divers," Moore said.
The additional divers, along with other department members, were on hand to provide safety support in case of an emergency.
The car emerged just before noon and broke the surface three times after the airbag was inflated. It was then towed to shore near the boat ramp where Fall and Stebbins Automotive of Mantua used tow-truck winches to right the car and pull it from the water.
Frank Tomaino, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources park officer for West Branch, said the car is the third pulled from the lake that had been driven in from the west boat ramp.