A pair of Castlegar teenagers played a vital role in saving a man’s life along the Kootenay River.
Stanley Humphries Secondary School Grade 12 students Will Watt and Shay Lafayette were taking a stroll across the Brilliant Suspension Bridge on April 12 when they heard someone shouting.
“We thought something was off, so we yelled back,” said Watt. “Then we heard a scream back for help.”
The voice was coming from under the neighbouring Highway 3A bridge.
Watt made his way down to the Kootenay River while Lafayette went for the car and called 911.
“I walked down to the edge of the rock bluffs and I saw someone in the water,” explained Watt. “That’s when I knew something was really wrong.”
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Watt says the man had been fishing and had fallen into the water in a spot where the boulders were too big for him to climb over on his own.
At that point the man had already been in the water for about 20 minutes.
Watt laid down on the rocks, reached for the man’s hands — one of them pierced by a fishing hook — and was able to pull him out of the water.
“He was extremely lucky that we showed up,” said Watt.
Watt says he wasn’t nervous at the time of the rescue.
“At the time it was a fight or flight thing,” he said. “I knew that even if I fell in, help was on the way.”
He says the gravity of the situation sunk in after the fact.
“He was very close to being gone.”
betsy.kline@castlegarnews.comLike us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
