[Flashpoint]

Boston News Article about Chappawhatchamacallit

The black sedan was in flight. It hit the water and sank, settling upside down in the pond.

The next thing Kennedy knew was that he was going to die.

"There was complete blackness," he said later, according to a court transcript. "Water seemed to rush in from every point, from the windshield, from underneath me, above me."

Conscious of Kopechne struggling beside him, he lifted the driver's door handle and pressed. Nothing happened.

He drew what he believed was his last breath.

And then, somehow, he escaped, "pushing, pressing, and coming up to the surface" with "no idea in the world how I got out of that car."

He would recall being swept away by the tide, calling out Kopechne's name as he drifted. He said he recovered his footing and waded back to the car through waist-deep water, guided by the glow of the headlights underwater.

He dove below the surface, trying to get to Kopechne. He failed, and tried again, seven or eight times in all. By then he was exhausted, barely able to hold his breath.

Finally, he let himself float away. He crawled onto shore and lay there, coughing and gasping. Then he staggered up the bank and started back up Dike Road, "walking, trotting, jogging, stumbling, as fast as I possibly could."