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Firefighters rescue man from Vancouver Lake

Oregon resident was visiting sister, suffers from dementia

By Bob Albrecht
Published: May 18, 2011, 12:00am

Fire District 6 firefighters and rescue swimmers used a boat Wednesday morning to pull a 66-year-old Salem, Ore., man suffering from dementia from Vancouver Lake.

At 10:45 a.m., the man was safely in the boat and on the way to the Felida moorage, said Dawn Johnson, a district spokeswoman. When he reached the shore, he was loaded into an American Medical Response ambulance and transported to Oregon Health & Science University Hospital in Portland.

Johnson said the man, who was not identified, suffered minor scrapes and mild hypothermia as a result of his experience.

It is not fully known why the man was in the water. Johnson said he’s in town visiting his sister, who lives in the Felida area. He told his sister this morning he needed to go for a walk.

Worried about his mental state, the woman called the Clark County Sheriff’s Office and, along with deputies, followed her brother.

He went off a steep embankment near the 8600 block of Lakeshore Avenue. He was pulled from the water near the outlet of the lake, where it becomes Lake River, about 30 to 40 yards from the shore. Firefighters in the department’s technical rescue boat found him clinging to brush.

“He ran across traffic and into Vancouver Lake and got into trouble,” Johnson said.

She said he was fortunate the water was higher than normal.

“The situation could have been a lot worse,” Johnson said. “Fortunately, he was able to get onto that brush and hold on.”

Because rescuers were working near the BNSF Railway tracks, trains were temporarily stopped, including an Amtrak Cascades train.

The Vancouver Fire Department also responded.

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