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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Girl's sharp eye saves man from Winnipeg River ice

By: Alexandra Paul

Posted: 03/20/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

A mother's quick wit, a daughter's keen eyes, a handy canoe and the will of two Mounties added up to the dramatic rescue of a man who fell through the ice in eastern Manitoba on Sunday.

Casey Courchene, a resident of Sagkeeng First Nation, told the Free Press her daughter, Lois, 12, spotted a man in the frigid Winnipeg River, about 145 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, after his ATV crashed through the ice.

"If it wasn't for my daughter looking out the window with the binoculars, he could have sunk without anyone knowing anything," Courchene said Monday.

The man was clinging to a patch of broken ice, with water surrounding him, Courchene said.

"Where he was, it was right in my backyard," said the 42-year-old teacher and mother of two, who grew up in the area and knows the river well.

That stretch of the river carries swift currents and, because it's located next to a pumphouse, water is moving fast even under thick ice in the coldest winter, she said.

Courchene went outside and called out to the man, she said.

"He said he was OK, but he said he was stuck. And he said his quad was underwater. I told him, 'That's the least of your worries.' I'm talking to him calm as a cucumber. Meanwhile, my heart is just beating inside me."

She kept him talking until Sagkeeng's fire and rescue workers arrived with the RCMP around 7 p.m. The man was still conscious, but he was losing his hold and slipping farther into the water.

Courchene's next-door neighbour, her uncle, had a canoe outside that the RCMP used in the rescue. Without it, the rescue might not have gone so well, she said.

"I was so impressed with the Sagkeeng firefighters and the RCMP. They were so fast," Courchene said.

Two members of the Mounties, wearing flotation suits, used their hands to paddle the canoe about 100 metres to the man, said Winnipeg RCMP spokesman Cpl. Miles Hiebert.

"They threw out a rope and life-jacket and pulled him into the canoe," Hiebert said.

The man, identified by local residents as Randy Campbell, 28, was treated and released from hospital after the rescue Sunday evening. The family declined comment Monday.

The Sagkeeng call wasn't the only river rescue RCMP responded to Sunday. They took calls from Lockport, too.

"A few ice fishers were stranded by open water and called for assistance, (but) they were eventually able to walk back to shore," Hiebert said.

"But with the warm weather, people should stay off the ice completely."

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 20, 2012 A6

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