[D31] FW: [Psml] FW: News Article - PFDs Save 2 Lives

[D C (Mac) Macdonald]

Please pass this on to your members that don't have email.
It might be a good thing to contact your local newspaper
to see if they might wish to get approval from the Tacoma
News Tribune to run it as a public service.

D C "Mac" Macdonald, AP
 m/v Another Adventure
Grand Lake (OK) S & P S
 Oklahoma City S & P S



----Original Message Follows----

From: "Robert Miller" <boatsafe@comcast.net>
To: "PSML - USPS" <psml@usps.org>
Subject: [Psml] FW: News Article
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 21:30:52 -0700

Thought some of you might be interested in this article from
yesterday's Tacoma, WA paper.  Certainly a good example of
the power of the PFD.

P/C Janna Webster
Poverty Bay

==========
 
LIFE JACKETS, LUCK SEND DEATH BACK TO THE DEPTHS

KATHLEEN MERRYMAN; THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Published: October 12th, 2005 12:01 AM

Normally, we don’t write about guys like Jeremy Stutesman and
Tim Chuscavage until search crews are diving for their bodies.
They were drinking.  They were boating.  They were floating
in 200 feet of water, and for four dark hours, no one knew
they were lost.  But early in the morning of Sept. 18, at Lake
Quinault, the long-time friends from Hoquiam did one thing
right.  That one thing kept them alive until luck had time to
arrange a rescue.

Both men are 27.  Jeremy sides houses for a living and built a
half-pipe in a friend’s barn so he can skateboard in the rain.
Tim returned to Hoquiam this summer after eight years in Houston,
where he managed a restaurant.  They ran into each other Sept. 17
at the wedding of Eric Nebel and Laura Budryte.  The happy couple
had the ceremony at Camp Kiwanis on the north shore of Lake
Quinault – and wisely rented cabins where guests who chose to
dance and talk and drink could stay overnight.

Around 9:30 p.m., Jeremy, on his own, rowed a canoe across the
lake and back.  Eight hours later, canoeing still seemed like a
fine idea.  "Jeremy and I hadn’t been on the best of terms and
decided to talk," Tim said.  "Jeremy wanted to canoe and talk."

They left around 5:15 a.m.  It was 6 a.m. when they reached the
middle of the lake.  The talking was going well.  So was the
paddling.

"We were picking up the pace, cruising along, when Tim dipped
to the right," Jeremy said.  "He dug down and bent over at the
same time.  It scooped us under.  I just felt us roll over."

They disagree about the orange life jackets.  Tim says they had
them on over their coats all the time.  Jeremy remembers putting
them on in the water.  Either way, the jackets are the reason
they’re alive.

"We were in a bad spot," Jeremy said.  "We were in the middle of
the lake.  It’s super deep, over 200 feet.  There’s no coming up
after you go down, unless you start bloating."

They righted the canoe, but it was full of water and impossible
to paddle.  They tried turning it upside down, and, though it
floated, they could not paddle it.

"I tried to make it to shore while Tim stayed with the boat,"
Jeremy said.  "I was freezing.  I could see the silhouette of
a tree.  I kicked until I was 20 or 30 feet away from the boat
and swam back.  I tried for shore once again.  I don’t remember
a whole lot after that."

Tim stuck with the boat and somehow avoided the hypothermia that
had hit Jeremy.  "We got in the canoe and tried to make headway,
but never got far that way," Tim said.  "I tried swimming and
pulling the canoe with Jeremy in it.  That seemed to get us
farther."

Jeremy has little memory of the last three hours in the water.
He does not recall taking off his life jacket while Tim was
trying to pull the canoe.  Tim looked back, saw Jeremy going
under, got his own life jacket off, dived 10 feet, snagged
Jeremy by his coat collar and pulled him to the surface.  "He
took his life jacket and wrapped it around my arms so my head
was floating," Jeremy said.  "The last thing he remembers me
saying was ‘I’m dying.  I’m dying.’"  He was.

At 10 a.m. one of two young people fishing in a small boat with
Tom Sager of Gig Harbor saw Tim waving a paddle.  They pulled
Jeremy out first, then Tim, who was fine.  Jeremy was convulsing.
A medic at Lake Quinault Lodge worked on Jeremy for 20 minutes
until an aid crew arrived.  She thought he was going to die.  His
heartbeat was uneven.  His core body temperature was 82 degrees.
It took 11 hours to warm him at Grays Harbor Hospital.

Tim and Jeremy cannot thank the medics, Tom Sager and those two
kids enough.  They retrieved an oar, signed it and hung it in
Tim’s apartment.

It may be picturesque, but it did not save their lives.  That
honor goes to the humble orange life jackets they had the good
sense to put in the canoe.

Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677
kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com