PORTLAND — An accidental fall into a Lebanon, Ore., hotel’s water feature Friday morning illustrates the dangers of hypothermia, officials said.
The episode began when a man and wife took a post-breakfast, pre-dawn stroll outside the Best Western Premier Boulder Falls Inn. At the hotel’s Japanese garden, the man missed a step down from a gazebo, stumbled and fell head-first into a pond and its 42-degree water, according to a Lebanon Fire District news release.
“The man quickly became incapacitated from the cold water and was unable to swim to the edge of the pond. He drifted to the center of the pond which ranges up to 5-plus feet in depth,” the release says.
The man’s wife ran to the hotel front desk where someone called 911. The hotel manager ran to the pond, entered and helped the man to a rocky outcrop. “But the victim was overcome by hypothermia and could not stand or climb up the rocky shore,” the release says.