10. Kennedy Drove Off a Bridge and Crashed Into a Pond
Ted Kennedy stated that he took a wrong turn on the way to the ferry, driving instead down the narrow unpaved road towards the infamous bridge over Poucha Pond. His memory was fuzzy, he said in statements, but he somehow ended up driving off the bridge and into the pond, where the car overturned. At the time, the bridge did not have any guard rails or protective devices in place, and the road did bend at an angle right at the mount of the bridge. Police reports indicated that the car had to be traveling at a relatively high speed for the vehicle to have both flipped and ended up quite a ways out into the pond. The car was a heavy 1967 Oldsmobile Delmond 88.
After flipping the car, while it began to sink, Kennedy was somehow able to escape. He claimed in his statement that he attempted many time to fight a strong current and dark, murky water to try to rescue Kopechne. Kennedy, having been raised around the ocean, was a strong swimmer. Poucha Pond is a tidal pond, with the water flowing into the Edgartown Harbor. However, despite his comments on the problematic currents, after failing to retrieve Kopechne with his two friends, he swam an entire mile across the pond back to his hotel in Edgartown.