Help dispatched in the nick of time

Jim Eagon was sitting at his computer station at the 911 dispatch center when he learned that a distraught man appeared to be planning to end his life in the Columbia River.

It was 6:21 p.m. Wednesday, July 14, and a cab driver had called 911 from the amphitheater and boat dock just downstream from the Red Lion Hotel Vancouver at the Quay, at the foot of Columbia Street.

What happened during the next 30 minutes shows how dispatchers, seven of them working the call at different times, used phones, radios and computers to gather and share the facts — and brought rescuers with seven agencies, from two states, rushing to the river in police cars, ambulances, fire engines and boats.

But it was the 911 call from cab driver Bill Pippin that got it all started.

“I just had a fare hand me a note when he got done and got out of my cab,” Pippin told dispatcher Eagon. “It appears to be very concerning, a suicide note of some type.”

“What does the note say, sir?” Eagon asked.

Pippin said the note contained the man’s name and a sort of will, telling what of his belongings should go to his mother and others.

But the most chilling part of the note mentioned a woman’s name and told her, “Sorry I just can’t take it anymore. It’s my fault …”

“Then he just handed it to you?” Eagon broke in. “Where are you at?”

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Eagon, typing the call into his computer in the next few minutes, drew a river of information from the cab driver, including his name and phone number.

Pippin provided Eagon with the distressed man’s name, description and clothing: “Middle-aged guy, probably 45 years old, sandy colored hair, and I think a white T-shirt and gray pants or greenish khaki…”

Pippin said he’d lost sight of the man while reading the note, but figured he was still on foot somewhere around the amphitheater and dock.

Eagon, still typing rapidly, asked whether the man had specified how he planned to kill himself.

“No method indicated, no,” Pippin said. He said he’d wait for police to arrive.

“All right, we’ll get ’em there as soon as we can,” Eagon told the cab driver.

Minutes after Eagon started adding details into the call, it appeared on one of six computer screens at dispatcher Robin Donahue’s work station. At 6:25 p.m., she put the call out on the radio, for two officers to head for the amphitheater and look for the distraught man and the cab driver who tried to save him by calling 911.

“Sam 11 and 13 for a suicidal subject, just dropped off by a cab at the amp behind the Red Lion at 100 Columbia Street, subject is wearing …”

Another police officer radioed he’d go, too.

Dispatchers radioed a deputy with the Clark County Sheriff’s Marine Patrol, who said his boat was in Camas, a good distance away.

At 6:33 p.m., an arriving Vancouver police officer radioed that he’d spotted the man.

“Control 3, Sam 11, he just jumped off the amphitheater into the river. See if you can get the Coast Guard or Portland’s boat over here.”

“Received,” the dispatcher said.

An officer said the man was swimming out into the center of the river.

“I’ve called Portland and my partner’s calling the Coast Guard,” the dispatcher radioed.

A minute later, dispatchers “split” the call, bringing the Vancouver Fire Department and AMR Northwest ambulance paramedics into it and asking them to respond.

Meanwhile, the police officers kept the man in sight as he swam and drifted down the river some 50 yards offshore.

A man who was fishing for sturgeon said the man was wearing a backpack that appeared to be keeping him afloat.

Dispatchers were asking Portland Fire & Rescue to send its Rescue Boat 17, and for the U.S. Coast Guard to respond as well. Both agreed to send boats.

Firefighters, steering their engines toward the amphitheater at 6:36 p.m., asked for a separate operations radio channel for the call, and were given Ops 51.

Police at the amphitheater area, officially named Vancouver Landing at Terminal One, could still see the man, but he was floating into the sun’s glare reflected off the water.

Other officers rushed to the BNSF Railway bridge downstream to watch for the man.

At 6:41 p.m., the crew with Portland Rescue Boat 17 radioed on Ops 51 that they were about to head for Vancouver. The 32-foot Munson-brand aluminum catamaran has a crew of four people, two 225-horsepower outboard engines and a top speed of about 45 mph.

About that time, police lost sight of the man in the water. AMR Northwest arrived, and Vancouver firefighters launched their small rescue boat from the dock.

Someone radioed that folks on a small sailboat were looking for the man, and were close to where he was thought to be. Approaching rescue boats steered toward the sailboat.

The River Patrol boat from the Multnomah County, Ore., Sheriff’s Office also was on the way.

The minutes ticked by and finally, at 6:46 p.m., a crewman on Portland’s boat radioed they’d found the man in the water.

“Rescue Boat 17, we’ve located the individual on the surface. We’re getting ready to bring him aboard at this time.”

A minute later the crewman came on the radio again.

“Rescue Boat 17, I suggest having police on standby. He’s recommending that we take him back up and he tries it again. He’s uncooperative as far as getting on board.”

The rescue boat quickly returned to the amphitheater dock with the man.

Vancouver police, waiting there, handcuffed his hands behind his back for safety purposes. Paramedics gave him a towel and walked with him up the ramp. They checked him for medical problems and took him away by ambulance for a mental evaluation.

The rescue was complete.

During those 30 minutes, the seven dispatchers at countywide Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency had coordinated the rescue “all the while handling other phone and radio traffic in the normal day-to-day operations,” dispatcher Eagon said later.

He said the dispatchers had to use five radio channels at first, and later brought rescuers from two states together on two channels.

John Branton: 360-735-4513 or john.branton@columbian.com.