AGFC Wildlife Officers Spend Christmas Saving Lives
01-07-2010It was a busy Christmas morning for two Arkansas Game and Fish Commission wildlife officers. In the early morning hours, the two officers were involved in a water rescue on North Walter’s Chapel Road near Carlisle.
Wildlife officers Dallas Taylor and John Thomas were already responding to a call for search and rescue efforts in flood waters on Highway 13, when they received the call for assistance on another water rescue near Carlisle.
After responding to the second call, the motorists were eventually located on Walter’s Chapel Road at 2 a.m., Thomas said. “Two people trapped in the vehicle were in cell phone contact with a member of the Carlisle Fire Department and said their vehicle was filling with water and that they were getting very cold,” Thomas said. “Officer Taylor and I put a boat into the swift water and motored to the vehicle which was about 400 yards away,” he explained.
When the two officers arrived at the vehicle, the man inside could not get his window to roll down. Thomas broke the window with a flash light, and the two officers pulled out a man and a woman appearing to be in their 40’s, plus their two dogs.
Thomas said that the man told him he had had a heart attack two days before and was very cold. “From my observation he appeared to be experiencing at least mild hypothermia at that point since he was wet and only dressed in a t-shirt and sweat pants. The temperature was in the mid 20s with high wind and some snow,” he explained.
After loading the vehicle occupants into the boat Taylor drove the boat back to a spot where the passengers were turned over to other emergency personnel waiting on the road. From that point, the two were taken away for medical attention.