Ron Brooks has taught countless police and firefighters about the risks of hypothermia when rescuing people from the water.
“Now I’ve got a personal experience I can share with everybody, that’s for sure,” he said Thursday.
Brooks, a sergeant with the Lake Stevens Police Department, swam in the chilly waters of Lake Stevens about 9 p.m. Wednesday night to save a woman in her early 40s who apparently had jumped from a dock in the 1800 block of Main Street.
He saved her, dragging her from 30 feet offshore to the underside of the dock. He kept her afloat until a Lake Stevens Fire Department boat could lift her to safety.
They were in the 42-degree water for eight or nine minutes. When it was over, all Brooks could do was cling to a nearby dock and wait for his co-workers to pull him out.
“I was spent, I was cold,” said Brooks, an instructor at the Washington State Parks Marine Law Enforcement Academy. “My fingers and hands were numb, and I could hardly kick.”
Brooks was wearing a life jacket that he keeps in the back of his patrol car. He was also wearing all his clothes, including his bulletproof vest. All he removed was his duty belt.
Once he had pulled the woman back to the dock, which was too high off the water to climb up on, he grabbed the dock with one hand and held onto the woman with the other. He wrapped his legs around her and a piling to keep her close.
Another officer tossed down the back seat of a patrol car to help them stay afloat.
“By that time, I was so cold I could hardly even move,” Brooks said. “It felt like I was in there forever.”
Brooks, who teaches hypothermia classes at the marine academy, said one of his favorite lessons is the so-called 50-50-50 rule. The rule states you have a 50-50 chance of being able to swim 50 feet if the water is colder than 50 degrees.
Brooks swam about 80 feet in Lake Stevens; he swam 30 feet out to the woman, 30 feet back to the dock and then another 20 feet to a dock low enough for officers to pull him out.
Also, when the water is that cold, hypothermia starts to set in after about five minutes, Brooks said.
“As soon as you hit the water, you can almost feel the life getting sucked out of you,” he said.
Neither the officer nor the woman was seriously injured. The officer was able to drive himself home after spending half an hour warming up in the back of an aid car.
Brooks took a warm bath when he got home.
“I don’t ever want to do anything like that again,” he said. “But I’d do it again if I had to.”
Reporter Scott Pesznecker: 425-339-3436 or spesznecker@heraldnet.com.
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