‘ACTS OF HEROISM’
Police praise actions of bystanders who tried to save boy and girl after ATV plunge
Two roommates from Squamish were packing up from a couple days of camping near Chilliwack when they were called to help people in distress.
A 15-year-old raced up to their campsite on a dirt bike.
Some of his relatives had fallen into the lake.
Joy Pringle and Hannah Reinholt took off running.
The two were among a handful of people who sprang into action in aid of an Abbotsford family who had plunged in their five-seater ATV down a 35-metre embankment into the icy, murky waters of Foley Lake.
The mother, father and eldest child, a 13-year-old son, survived the accident around noon Sunday. But, despite the Good Samaritans’ efforts and later those of the many first responders, including police, firefighters and the Chilliwack search-and-rescue team, the couple’s other son, 10, and daughter, 9, died.
“There were some pretty incredible acts of heroism,” Chilliwack RCMP Sgt. Krista Vrolyk said Monday.
“Everyone just took care of one another,” said Pringle, 36, who owns a house-painting company and works in the film industry.
She said two fishermen in a boat came over to help. Relatives were taking care of the stricken family and making sure the rescuers had dry clothes to change into.
“They were all heroes,” said Pringle. “It’s not just one person.”
After she and Reinholt ran for 10 minutes to get to the accident site from their campsite, they were told two people had died.
But Pringle’s background as a rock climber, cold-water swimmer and 10 years as a certified first aid attendant meant she didn’t give up.
“I said there’s still a chance someone could be alive,” Pringle said.
She scrambled down the embankment and into the lake’s 10 C water.
“I love cold-water dips, so that wasn’t really a deterrent,” said Pringle. She grabbed a “belly board” from the fishermen and dove in.
But diving the five metres to the lake’s bottom was excruciating. “It was really cold, it was burning my lungs,” she said.
She said she was able to get deep enough to feel something, but she couldn’t see a thing.
She realized she wouldn’t be able to navigate her way around the ATV, hold her breath long enough or have the strength to carry out a rescue by herself, and returned to the surface. “I realized it could not be done safely,” she said.
On shore, she, Reinholt, the fishermen and the family’s relatives kept the father and mother, who were hurt, and the 13-year-old warm and dry while they waited for police and paramedics. They were an hour’s drive from cellphone range and it was several hours before help arrived.
“We were all running up and down for supplies,” Pringle said. “One of the fishermen had no pants on for about an hour because he had given them to someone else. And people were giving me clothes.”
Pringle said she was cuddling with the mom in a sleeping bag to keep her warm.
She gave the 13-year-old her pyjamas and he was helped up the embankment to a car where he could get warm from the heater.
“Their little son was a positive, sweet, caring little guy,” she said.
Eventually, the parents were flown to hospital, though Pringle said the mom said she didn’t want to leave while her children were still in the water.
“I told her I would stay there … and I stayed there until they were brought out,” she said.