A couple was traveling along Van Buren Boulevard at about 7 p.m. Friday when, to their surprise, there was a white compact resting in a pond off to the side of the road at Riverside National Cemetery.

And there was a woman inside the nearly submerged car, sitting in the driver’s seat.

California Highway Patrol Officer A. Carneal said a man got out of the vehicle passing by. He waded through the water and pulled the young woman out of the sunken car, and back to dry land.

Carneal said it was unclear why the 23-year-old Redlands woman wound up in the water with her car.

“It looks like she just drove off into the pond,” he said.

Carneal said investigators were looking into whether she had been driving under the influence.

He said the driver was not hurt.

The water was approximately 3 feet deep, Carneal said. “She wasn’t in danger of drowning or anything like that.”