Truro man being hailed a hero after rescuing swimmer from churning waters
CBC
An off-duty police officer from Truro, N.S., is being hailed a hero after rescuing a woman from gushing river waters in Fundy National Park on Saturday.
Bruce Lake was visiting the New Brunswick park with his wife and some friends, when one of them spotted a woman swimming at the base of a small waterfall along Moosehorn Trail.
She was clinging to some rocks in the high, churning waters, as her friends stood nearby, unable to reach her.
Lake said her friends assured him she was fine, but she was embarrassed because she had lost her swimming bottoms.
The group gave them some privacy, but their instincts told them to stay close, Lake said.
Sure enough, that was the right decision.
"As she went to push off from that rock, she literally got sucked under," Lake told CBC Radio's Maritime Noon on Monday.
"She disappeared under the water and then came right back up by the rock where she was hanging to, so it was clear that she was in some sort of trouble."
That's when Lake started preparing to get into the water — not thinking he'd actually have to, but just in case — by taking off his sunglasses, knapsack and shoes.
He said the woman made one last attempt to reach the shore when she was sucked under the water again.
What felt like an eternity — about five seconds — passed, Lake said, but she still hadn't resurfaced.
So he jumped in.
"I went pretty deep. I didn't touch the bottom … but I brushed her arm. I just felt her arm and was lucky, very lucky, I think to feel even that and she was still even further below me, which was a little bit scary," he said.
"I didn't know how deep that thing was. The water was pulling us down. I grabbed her arm and pulled her in and just kind of hugged her and started swimming for the surface."