ORONO (AP) – An unattended car rolled from a parking lot into a river and sank over the weekend, drowning four dogs.

University of Maine spokesman Joe Carr said the operator of the vehicle, 58-year-old Rosemary Ackroyd of Orono, had come to the campus to go to a weekly farmers’ market.

Carr said Monday campus police were unsure why the vehicle rolled into the water Saturday morning. He said he did not know if the car, which was recovered about 100 yards downstream, had been left running or in parking gear.

Lt. Rob St. Louis of the Orono Fire Department said members of the department responded to the accident report and donned surface survival suits but did not attempt to free the dogs from the submerged car. “Our suits are made to do surface rescues,” he said. “We couldn’t go underwater.”

The rear bumper of the car was sticking up out of the water when firefighters arrived at the scene. About two hours later, when members of a Penobscot County dive team got into the icy water, the car was 15 to 20 feet below the surface, he said.

The Bangor Daily News reported that Mark Phillips, a local resident who witnessed the event, said Sunday he and others thought about going into the water to rescue the dogs until the Fire Department showed up. He said he was disappointed by the response.

“I expected more,” he said.

St. Louis said the department’s response was appropriate.

“A lot of people in the area were wondering why we didn’t go in,” St. Louis said. “We wished we could have done more, but we have to make sure the situation is safe for everybody.”

Carr told the newspaper university officials could recall only one other accident in recent years in which a vehicle rolled from the same parking lot into the Stillwater River.

“Certainly nobody was hurt or anything like that,” Carr said.