Paramedics treat a 39-year-old Mexican man rescued from drowning off of Osoyoos Lake Regional Park on the evening of June 21. Matthew Smith (right), a firefighter from Calgary, revived the man on the beach. Photo by Paul Everest - Click on picture for larger image
OSOYOOS TIMES-June 23, 2010
By Paul Everest – Osoyoos Times
A group effort saved a man’s life after a near-drowning off of Osoyoos Lake Regional Park on the evening of June 21.
An Osoyoos woman, a Burnaby man and a Calgary man worked together to get a drowning Mexican man, aged 39, out of the water and to resuscitate him.
The woman, who asked not to have her name used, said she was reading a book near the beach at the park off of Lakeshore Drive at about 6 p.m. when she heard yelling from the water and saw a man floundering.
She swam out to the man, who was face down in the water, grabbed him and began calling for someone to dial 911.
The woman turned the man over and held him to keep him from sinking.
She said it was three of the Mexican man’s friends who were calling for help.
David Ehrhardt of Burnaby heard the commotion from his campsite at the Brookvale Holiday Resort which neighbours the park.
He jumped into his boat that was just offshore, snapping his anchor line in his hurry, and made his way out to where the woman was holding the man, about 45 metres from shore.
Ehrhardt pulled the man and the woman into his boat and said the victim was not breathing.
He was totally blue and his eyes had rolled back in his head, Ehrhardt said.
Once the boat returned to shore, Matthew Smith, a Calgary firefighter vacationing at the resort, worked to revive the victim on the beach.
He said he had just gotten back to his campsite when he heard calls for someone to call 911.
Smith, who is also a former B.C. ambulance paramedic, said he grabbed his first aid kit from his campsite and ran to the boat.
When he reached the victim, he thought the man was dead as he was freezing cold and not breathing.
Smith found a weak pulse and turned the man on to his side so water could drain from his airway.
He said the victim had swallowed his tongue, but Smith could hear movement in the back of his throat as if air was still moving.
Smith then did a “jaw thrust” to move the man’s jaw back to allow air to get through the victim’s airway.
The man “vomited a good litre of water onto the floor,” he said.
After a minute the victim started to come around, Smith said, and within two to three minutes after resuscitation efforts had begun, the man was revived.
Some of the victim’s friends came over and Smith had them speak Spanish to the man to ask him what happened and keep him alert.
The victim said he had swallowed some water while swimming and couldn’t remember what happened afterward, Smith said.
The man is an agricultural worker who had come down to the beach to cool off after a day of work in the area, Smith added, and it seems he and his friends got too close to a drop-off in the lake and the victim got into trouble while swimming.
Police and ambulance attendants arrived shortly after the man was revived and he was given oxygen before being taken to Oliver’s South Okanagan General Hospital.
Smith said the man was still “pretty dazed” when he got into the ambulance, but he managed to say “thank you” to his rescuers.
He added that it was the man’s “lucky day” and told the woman who had swam out to help the victim that she was a hero.
“You just saved a guy’s life,” Smith said.
Several other men at the resort, as well as the resort’s owner, played a role in getting the victim out of the boat and onto the beach, he added.
Smith said that had the man been in the water for another 30 seconds, he would have been in much worse condition.
“I’m glad we were here,” Smith said.
Police were not able to provide further information on the victim’s condition before press time.
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