‘What if somebody hadn’t come?’ Professor’s heroism saves woman
SASKATOON• Hayley Hess el nd idn’ tthinktw ice about risking her life to save another.
“I think, ‘What if somebody hadn’t have come along?’ It’s just too scary to think about,” Hesseln said the day after she crawled onto the frozen South Saskatchewan River and used a tree branch to rescue a woman who had plunged through the ice moments earlier.
“You don’t expect it, and then everything happens so fast, and then when you’re going through it, you’re thinking, ‘Oh my God, I hope I can get to her,’” Hesseln, 50, said Monday.
Hesseln, who teaches agricultural economics at the University of Saskatchewan, took her dogs Mickey, Maude, Jack and Georgia for a walk early Sunday afternoon. As usual, she left the trail to walk through the brush near the river.
The first time she heard yelling, she figured it was some kids goofing around. When the shouting didn’t stop, she ran toward the river and saw three dogs and a flash of colour — a woman wearing a red parka immersed in the water, trying to crawl back on the ice.
“I yelled to her that I was coming,” Hesseln said. “I was trying to break off these tree branches — I wanted something long so I didn’t go in after her, fall in the water … I got out close to her and then I laid down on my stomach and crawled the rest of the way.”
After dragging the woman back onto the ice, Hesseln swapped her warm parka for the woman’s drenched jacket. Then, realizing neither of them had a working cellphone, she ran the kilometre back to the nearest road and tried to flag down a car.
“You wouldn’t believe how many cars would not stop,” Hesseln said.
Eventually, she said, two cars pulled over. The passengers called 911 and followed her tracks back to the woman. After bundling her into more warm clothes, Hesseln said, the group walked the woman back toward the road.
“She was (able to walk) but she said she couldn’t feel her body, her legs,” Hesseln recalled. “She kept saying she was going to pass out but she was coherent. We were rubbing her, trying to keep her warm. (The firefighters) met us at the bottom of the hill.”
Troy Davies, a spokesman for Medavie Health Services West, confirmed Hesseln’s story in a phone interview. He said Hesseln’s intervention almost certainly saved the woman’s life.
The incident began, Davies said, when the woman’s dogs chased some Canada geese onto the ice, leading her to attempt a rescue. Hesseln said the woman managed to save her dogs, but fell through the ice herself and was unable to get out.
“This is a freak accident. This is the first time I’ve heard of a call like this in my 20 years here … It’s one of these calls where, thank God it worked out the way it did,” Davies said, adding the woman was treated for hypothermia and is expected to be fine.
None of the dogs involved were injured.
Hesseln, meanwhile, said the incident Sunday was her first brush with a life-and-death situation. Asked about her swift reaction to a dangerous situation, she replied: “I’m so grateful I could be there.”