Nurses’ Quick Actions Save Drowning Family
7/14/2021
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (July 14, 2021) – It was a typical, warm and humid summer day as three Lutheran Health Network (LHN) nurse leaders put their kayaking plans on hold to save a Fort Wayne family.
Sandi Wagner, LHN director of telemedicine; Hope Darrow, St. Joseph Hospital chief nursing officer; and Kathy Kopka, LHN VP of access and transfer, were kayaking at Chain O’ Lakes State Park, along with Wagner’s daughter Terri Rodriguez, a nurse from Texas, when they heard a man yelling in the distance. They couldn't make out what he was saying but he appeared in the water along with a couple of boys.
Darrow and Wagner caught sight of the man and quickly realized he was yelling, “Help!” and actually drowning. Darrow then called out to Wagner to paddle towards the distressed swimmer. Wagner then alerted others by calling out, “He’s drowning!”
“My daughter Terri and I immediately started paddling with all we had,” explained Wagner.
Even as the two approached, they realized they were still too far away. The man was repeatedly going under and becoming weaker. Darrow and Wagner started shouting commands to him to hold his breath and roll onto his back. Panicked, he was unable to follow the suggestions.
Sensing the severity of the situation, the man’s wife jumped out of her canoe to try to swim to him. In the process, she tipped their canoe over, plunging herself, and their children, into the water. The man’s small son was tossed into the water next to him and begged his father to grab onto him.
The final time the man emerged, he had lost so much strength he could not get his head completely out of the water or bring his arms up to the surface. Wagner still doesn’t know how, but she and her daughter reached for him just as he was slipping under for the last time and he grabbed their kayak. As Darrow and Kopka pulled one of the boys out of the water, Wagner pulled out the traumatized son that was next to his dad. Teamwork among the other kayakers rescued the wife, kids and belongings, reuniting the whole family safely on shore across the lake.
Afterwards, the man told his rescuers he knew that the last time he was going under was the end of his life. Fortunately for him, the four women were all emergency department nurses.
“He was going home alive, no matter what,” says Wagner.
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