RUMFORD —  It was quite a sinking feeling for Tyson Hanson early Friday morning in more ways than one.

Hanson, 20, of Rumford, witnessed his car roll quickly down an embankment at a Rumford park and into the the dark depths of the Androscoggin River at about 1 a.m.

“I was with my friend transferring things from her car to mine,” Hanson said, “when I turned and saw that my car was no longer behind me.”

Hanson had left his 2002 silver Volkswagen Passat running and in neutral, with the emergency brake off and the lights on at the Visitor Center at the Eugene Boivin Park.

The car began rolling backward, pushing an unlocked gate open, he said. It continued to pick up speed as it rolled down the hill toward the river approximately 50 yards away.

“For a brief moment I thought about running after it,” Hanson said,” but it was going too fast. All I could do was watch the headlights disappear into the river as the car sank.”

Hanson called the Rumford Police Department immediately and emergency responders decided it best to wait until daylight to recover it.

On Friday morning, a salvage team that included members of the Rumford Fire Department, Rumford Police Department, Adley’s Towing Service of Rumford and scuba diver Ed Carey tried to locate the car and pull it out of the river. However, the strong current and recent rains complicated the search.

Carey in a wetsuit and tethered by a safety line held by a firefighter sank into the 61 degree river water.

“Its very murky down there,” he said upon emerging from his first underwater grid sweep to find the car. “The visibility down there is at best three feet. “

Carey’s ever widening arcs brought him to river depths of up to 17 feet yet yielded no sign of the missing car after one hour of searching.

Hanson watched the search process from the shoreline absorbed and with good humor tolerating some ribbing by some of the spectators.

After several hours searching in vain for the submerged vehicle Rumford Fire Department requested a search vessel from the Bethel Fire Department. 

Bethel firefighters Mike Fleet and Andy Whitney, both of Bethel, delivered their department’s 16-foot-long bright orange rescue boat to Boivin Park around 12:50 p.m. The vessel was  quickly launched and with the help of a fish finder the search and rescue crew scanned the river’s bottom.

The team found two locations approximately 80 yards out from the missing  car’s initial water impact spot.

Diver Ed Carey, once again, plunged into the turbid Androscoggin depths to investigate and immediately found the river current was significantly stronger at the new search location and it was too risky to continue.

The search was suspended at 2:30 p.m. and will resume at 9 a.m. Saturday.

The hope of the rescue personnel was that an already scheduled Friday reduction of river flow at the Shelburne Dam on the upper Androscoggin River in Shelburne, N.H., would mean an easier search and recovery effort Saturday.

“We do need to remove the car due to environmental concerns,” Rumford Fire Department Capt. Bob Chase said.

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