Man, car spend 6 1/2 hours in creek

Published 2:44 pm Thursday, January 5, 2012

A tan Buick Park Avenue is left in the creek below Interstate 90 after a man was extricated around 1:45 p.m. Thursday. He was airlifted to St. Marys Hospital in Rochester. -- Kelli Lageson/Albert Lea Tribune

A man spent 6 1/2 hours in a frigid creek north of Albert Lea in his automobile and had to be airlifted to a Rochester hospital after authorities found him.

Firefighters search through debris for anything identifying the man who was extricated from the tan Buick Park Avenue after it crashed into a creek below Interstate 90, west of Highway 13.

An eastbound tan 2004 four-door Buick Park Avenue driven by Lyndon Schewe, 53, of Owatonna, left the roadway of Interstate 90 just west the Minnesota Highway 13 exit around 6:30 a.m. He was not discovered in icy Wedge Creek until about 1 p.m.

The creek runs perpendicular to the interstate and a long gravel driveway on the side of the freeway that connects to School Section Lake properties.

Schewe was airlifted via Mayo One to St. Marys Hospital in Rochester at about 1:45 p.m. after being extricated from his Buick.

Lyndon Schewe, 53, of Owatonna, was airlifted by Mayo One to St. Marys Hospital in Rochester. The man spent 6 1/2 hours in a Buick Park Avenue after crashing into a creek below Interstate 90 before being found.

Authorities stated Schewe had a bruised arm and was cold. His other injuries were unknown, but the Minnesota State Patrol stated the injuries were not life-threatening.

What caused the crash or how Schewe ended up in the creek has not been released. It is unclear whether the car crashed over the bridge or somehow otherwise careered off the hill.

The State Patrol listed the crash as a rollover.

According to the State Patrol, the son of a nearby homeowner found the man in his crashed car and called 911. Items from the car — a tire, packs of Camel Lights, shattered glass — were scattered on the nearby hillside.

A tan Buick Park Avenue rests in a creek below Interstate 90 while firefighters and members of the State Patrol and Freeborn County Sheriff's Office look on.

The Minnesota State Patrol was assisted at the scene by the Freeborn County Sheriff’s Office, the Albert Lea and Manchester fire departments and Mayo Clinic Health System in Albert Lea ambulance crews.

Look to the Tribune for more information as it becomes available.