Man Rescued in Puget Sound by Fireboat Endeavor
At approximately 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 21, West Pierce Fire & Rescue was dispatched to Day Island for a water rescue. The call was initiated by Gig Harbor Fire & Medic One, after assisting a patient who had been rescued from the water by a passerby and brought to a public dock for evaluation. There was a language barrier and it wasn’t until that evaluation by Gig Harbor Fire crews did they know there was another man still in the water. Their boat had capsized and two men were initially on board.
West Pierce crews began the search for the overturned boat and second man. The boat was believed to have capsized between Salmon Beach and the Narrows Bridge about an hour prior. With time being of the essence, multiple agencies responded and Anderson Island’s fireboat quickly found the boat with no one on board near Chambers Bay. West Pierce firefighters on Fireboat Endeavor spotted the man in the water about a quarter of a mile from the boat.
West Pierce deployed a diver and a rescue swimmer from the boat, who both swam to the man and got him into the back of the Endeavor. He was conscious, but had an altered level of consciousness. They took him to meet paramedics at Narrows Marina, where he was transported to the hospital for exposure to the elements.
West Pierce Fire & Rescue works tirelessly to train for such situations. Marine pilots for Fireboat Endeavor, rescue swimmers and divers make up our water rescue program, ensuring any water rescue on Puget Sound or any of our many lakes are responded to efficiently and quickly.