A foreign exchange student came within seconds of drowning when he was saved by Good Samaritans at Thetis Lake Tuesday afternoon, fire officials say.
Crews were called to the lake at 1:47 p.m. for a report of two 16-year-old boys struggling in the water.
Two women on a paddle board and one man on a belly boat noticed them in distress, and pulled the boys out of the water and onto the paddle board.
While one was unharmed, the other boy was in “significant medical distress” when paramedics and firefighters arrived on scene.
He was transported to hospital with what was believed to be a lung full of water.
Fire officials say the boy came within seconds of going under the water permanently and are commending the Good Samaritans, who left without giving their names, for saving his life.
“This was an extremely close call for the one young male. It’s my understanding that if the rescuers hadn’t have pulled the male out of the water when he did, he was literally one breath from drowning and being on the bottom,” View Royal Fire Chief Paul Hurst said in a statement.
“These individuals that saved this boy’s life should be very proud of their actions today. Honestly, I’m not sure they realized at the time how significant their intervention was”
The students were swimming near the cliff area of Thetis Lake, Hurst said.
It was the first drowning rescue of the season at Thetis Lake, but it’s far from the first time it’s happened.
The incident is eerily similar to one in 2013, when a 21-year-old international student drowned at the popular swimming beach.
Civilians had pulled the man from the water and commenced CPR on the beach, but were unable to revive him, and he became the third exchange student since 1998 to drown there.
Officials have said many visitors from outside the province don’t realize that B.C. waters can be colder, faster and deeper than in other parts of the world.
