Water rescue rivets town

By Scott Sullivan
Editor
The greater life’s call, the greater life’s response. Witness Thursday, Aug. 15, 12:40 p.m. when a South Haven man, 55, northbound on Blue Star Highway approaching the Kalamazoo River bridge, suffered what police believe was a medical condition.
His 2008 Chevy Silverado veered across oncoming bike and traffic lanes, snapped a power pole plunging more than 1,000 Douglas homes into darkness, careened down Washington Street just missing a Veterans Park angler, and catapulted into the water.
“Citizens responded,” said Douglas Police Chief Steve Kent. “They saved a life.”
Onlookers Maxwell Klemm and Austin Waalkes hopped a pontoon at the nearby Union Street launch ramp and/or arrived by bass boat and sped to where the victim’s pickup, nose down, was sinking. Citizens Mike O’Brien and Amy Shanahan assisted also.
Klemm boarded the vehicle’s still-above-water cab, smashed its rear windshield with a portable fire extinguisher and pulled the conscious-but-unresponsive driver through it. Water pouring in through the hole, the rest of the car sank fast.
Kent, Corp. Lori Warsen and Allegan County Sheriff’s deputies, Saugatuck Township Fire District and LIFE ambulance emergency responders, summoned by a 911 call to Allegan Central Dispatch, sped to the scene as well.
“It was scary,” said eyewitness Ethan Barde, who recorded much of the rescue from the bridge with his cell phone camera. “There were explosions, sounding almost like gunshots, as lines snapped overhead. Everything happened fast.”
Warsen and Kent parked cruisers by the splintered pole and downed wires to block traffic and gapers from coming too near and ran down the Washington Street hill to help rescuers.
Klemm, Waalkes, Shanahan, O’Briend and others helped ferry the victim to shore for treatment by LIFE EMTs, who sped him to Holland Hospital. John’s Towing hauled off the still-dripping wreck. Consumers Power arrived to restore power to Douglas as soon as possible.
Klemm learned later his father, Jeff, had grown up with the man in the car he’d saved.
“The response was amazing,” said eyewitness Jerry Donovan. “It was a brighter day in Douglas than it could have been, because of them.”
“It restores your faith in people,” Kent agreed.
STFD crews, said IT director Erik Kirchert, teamed with deputies and city public works staff using plows and more large vehicles to block and reroute Blue Star and access-roads traffic.
Meanwhile, said Kirchert, first responders fielded two more calls within 30 seconds of each other: a possible Douglas building fire and 911 medical in Saugatuck.
Two deputies, already standing by at Saugatuck Sidewalk Sales across the lake, were dispatched at once to the medical.
The Douglas fire proved an overheated air-conditioning unit on a business roof pushing smoke down into a now-evacuated shop. The A.C. was cooled off and tagged out of service, Kirchert said.
Firefighters cleared the scene at 5:30 p.m. and Consumers restored Douglas power at 7 p.m., he said.