An 89-year-old Melbourne man died Wednesday after he was pulled under his vehicle by a stream of water from a busted fire hydrant, troopers said.

  • Man crashed vehicle into hydrant in Brevard County
  • FHP: Man got out, was pulled under vehicle by stream of water
  • Robert Dreyer died at Viera hospital

Robert Dreyer was heading southbound on Tavistock Drive in Brevard County just after 10 a.m. when his 2016 G300 Mercedes Benz struck a fire hydrant and broke it, the Florida Highway Patrol said in a news release.

Dreyer got out of the vehicle. That's when he was pulled under it by water that spilled from the broken fire hydrant.

“The force of the water created an air pocket and sucked him down into the hole where he was under water for some period of time," said Lt. Channing Taylor with Florida Highway Patrol. “Haven’t seen anything like this before, usually the fire hydrants will break off and they won’t spew water, they have safety valves in place. But if you hit something the right way, some of the safeties don’t work.”

Witnesses said Dreyer was underwater for three to four minutes.

"And with so much water pressure we could have tried to link up and to get him out and we would have been getting sucked in too. We would have had to get that water shut off before we could do anything," said witness Pedro Rodriguez.

The crash is under investigation, FHP said.