A 97-year-old man in Grand Haven, Michigan, lost his balance and fell off a pier six feet into the water into Lake Michigan.
This was a life threatening emergency.
Luckily enough, he happened to do it at exactly the right location:
The Coast Guard Festival
ABC13: Coast Guard member treads water for 20+ minutes to rescue man, 97
He was quickly rescued by a Coast Guardsman who, without hesitation, leapt into the water and saved him, treading water and keeping him safe for 20 minutes until they both could be retrieved from the water.
These Coast Guardsmen save lives before their craft even leave the pier. Very well done.
5 comments:
Nice to hear this stuff- I’m a former USCG serviceman…
Not criticizing, but why did it take 20 minutes to get him out?
juvat
Probably took that long to get something out on the pier to life the victim out of the water. You can't just yoink a 97 year old man out by the arms...
doubltrouble: Yep, they did a good job with that rescue.
juvat: Don't know, probably as Rick T lays it out. I bet they had him stable and safe in the water and then had to figure out how to retrieve him safely.
Thank you for your service. I had a friend from work who was a USCG member. He told me that he spent most of the time doing drug interdiction.
A different friend from work was a U.S. Marine, who was the crew chief on Marine 1, during the time of George H.W. Bush. He told me that the former President was a very good human being to all of the military personnel that worked for him.
He also told me that the Secret Service people were, as he put it at the time, scary. They of course did their jobs, but were laser focused on the job and did not mingle with anyone else. It is hard to describe from my poor memory what he meant, but it seemed that the Secret Service people would arrive and disappear, then when it was time to depart, they would suddenly swoop in like they had never left.
No doubt they were busy doing their thing, but now looking back it is hard to forget the stories about some Secret Service people with hookers and booze.
The Coast Guard Festival is around 10-15 minutes south of my place, but due to the horrible congestion I never have been there.
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