Man recounts wife's dying moments

John Dwyer had just watched his wife, Jennifer, get whipped around on a tube, hit a dock and fly into the air on a western Douglas County lake.

He immediately dove into the water, swam to her and helped carry her to shore.

Her leg was broken, the bone jutting against her skin. Her hand was weak. The normally strong woman was having trouble breathing as she complained of pain in her ribs and spleen.

And Dwyer knew his wife was fading.

Taking the stand Tuesday in the manslaughter trial of the boater accused of causing her death, Dwyer described what he did next.

He grabbed her wedding band and engagement ring, which she removed whenever she swam, and rushed back to his wife.

He slid the rings back on her finger.

“Why?” asked prosecutor Matt Kuhse.

“She didn’t look good,” Dwyer said softly. “Her hand was weak. She started crying and saying she was hurt real bad.

“Whenever she took them off to go swimming or whatever, I always put them back on her. It was one of those things I always did.”

It would be the last time. The woman he had known for nine years and had married in September 2008 — Jennifer Susan de Correa Finke-Dwyer, 30 — died within hours of the crash.

And now, the Dwyers’ former friend and the boater that day, Todd Spangler, is on trial for manslaughter in her death.

Kuhse, a deputy Douglas County attorney, said Spangler, 31, committed manslaughter — the unintentional death of someone in an unlawful act — by driving drunk and recklessly that day. Tests later revealed Spangler’s blood-alcohol content was .16 — twice the legal limit for driving.

However, Spangler’s attorney, James Martin Davis, told jurors the alcohol had no effect on the crash — that Finke-Dwyer’s death was the result of a freak tubing accident, not Spangler’s drunkenness.

Dwyer described a gorgeous, sunsplashed first day of summer — a day that began with Father’s Day phone calls and ended in horror.

He and his wife had headed over to the Spanglers’ palatial house on West Shores Lake in western Douglas County. Dwyer and Spangler had become good friends when both worked at Securities America, a brokerage firm.

Dwyer and his wife, a native of Brazil who was pursuing her doctorate at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, had shared dinners, even Thanksgiving dinner, with the Spanglers at their home.

They also had been boating and tubing on the lake before.

On this day, Dwyer said he and his wife arrived in late afternoon. They brought over Bacardi Rum and some Mai Tai mix — and the four and two other women headed out on the boat.

Dwyer said they started out with just him and Spangler in the boat — and the four women riding on an oversized tube being pulled behind the boat. For a while, Dwyer drove.

However, he said, the girls began teasing him that he was driving too slowly.

Spangler took over. Eventually, two of the women climbed in the boat, leaving both Dwyer’s and Spangler’s wives on the tube. About 7 p.m., Dwyer said, the group decided to go back to the Spanglers’ house for dinner.

Heidi Lichtenberg, a friend who was on the boat, said she and Spangler were having a “nerd talk” about centrifugal force and “how cool it is.”

At that point, Lichtenberg said, Spangler called out: “Watch this.”

He jerked the steering wheel to the left. Lictenberg said she looked back in disbelief.

“He’s not a stupid guy,” she said. “I remember thinking, ‘Surely he’s going to see that dock there. He’ll release the tube or something and the girls will be fine.’”

Dwyer said the turn was so hard that he had to grab onto the boat to keep from falling off of his seat.

He looked over his left shoulder to see his wife, Jennifer, and Spangler’s wife, Kim, swinging across the water to the right.

He then looked over his right shoulder and saw the red tube hit the dock and his wife fly into the air before crashing into the water.

Dwyer said he dove into the water and raced to his wife.

“Are you OK, my love, are you all right?” Dwyer frantically asked.

He helped his wife to shore.

A neighbor, Dr. Jeff Nielsen, said he watched the whole thing unfold in disbelief. From his back patio, he said, he could see the path that the tube was heading. Before the tube even hit the dock, he hollered for someone to call 911.

Nielsen, a dentist, raced to the women in the water.

Arriving moments later, Spangler made a comment asking his wife and Dwyer why they jumped from the tube, Nielsen said. Nielsen’s wife, Lori, recalled Spangler saying something else – twice.

“We’ve been drinking all day,” he said, according to Lori Nielsen.

Dwyer, meanwhile, slipped his wife’s rings back on her finger and then stayed by her side in the ambulance, where they waited for a medical helicopter to arrive.

He begged her to keep her eyes open. She tried, he said, but her eyes were fading.

The helicopter landed. The two parted and he raced to Nebraska Medical Center.

There, he waited and was told the grim prospects. At best, his wife had a 5 to 10 percent chance of living.
Dwyer, eyes glassy, recalled Tuesday that he went to the chapel and prayed. Soon, a woman in a suit walked in.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

The woman handed him the rings he had just placed on his wife’s finger.

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