Spider-Man of Scugog to the rescue — again
He says he’s too old for the tights, but that hasn’t stopped Lake Scugog’s own Spider-Man from being a superhero — three separate times.
Sixty-nine-year-old Peter Parker was out for a spin on his pontoon boat with his wife, Deb Holbik, on Lake Scugog — about 40 kilometres north of Oshawa — when he witnessed a high-speed boat crash.
According to Parker, one craft was flipped upside-down by the impact while the other careened off to the side.
Like his namesake — Spider-Man’s alter ego — Parker leapt into action, motoring over to see how he could help.
What he found was a family — two seniors, two parents and a young boy — all bobbing in the water.
Parker said he was about to start pulling people onto his boat when he heard a phrase that made his stomach drop.
“The mother started yelling, ‘Where’s the baby? Where’s the baby?’ ” he said. “I’m looking around, but I can’t see a baby. Then she yells, ‘She’s under the boat!’ ”
Parker jumped into the water and joined the baby’s father, who was swimming around the boat searching through the wreckage for the infant.
He said he dived down to look under the boat but couldn’t see through the murky water. Parker — his knees cut and bleeding from crouching on the boat’s mangled fibreglass — climbed onto the side of the boat to continue searching.
Moments later, he said, he heard the father calling that he’d found her.
Parker guided the man to the edge of the boat and the baby was passed to him through a hole ripped open by the crash.
After helping the family aboard, Parker clambered back onto his boat and set a course for his home, about 10 minutes away.
“We got within 100 yards of shore and we started yelling ‘911,’ ” he said. “All of our neighbours ran out and started to assist.”
With the help of neighbours, Parker and Holbik attended to the injuries of the family in their home until emergency services arrived and took them to hospital.
The OPP is investigating the cause of the crash, which injured nine people in total. None of the injuries was life-threatening.
According to Parker, the entire episode was a series of lucky coincidences. “I don’t swim that well, so even jumping in the water is bit of a stretch for me,” he said.
“I was sitting down later thinking, ‘Jesus, Pete, you jumped right in there. That’s not like you,’ but you do things differently when you want to help somebody, especially with a child involved.”
Parker may be modest, but this isn’t the first time he’s been recognized for his heroics. He’s received two citations for bravery and community service for two other lake rescues.
The first was for saving a young girl by administering CPR in 1994, the second for helping fire services with the rescue of two men who plunged into icy waters while fishing in October 2011.
Parker said he’s not sure why he has a knack for being in the right place at the right time, but admits it’s “really weird.”
As for any suggestion that he might be a superhero on the side ( he does have a Spider-Man tattoo), Parker denies it.
“I’m too old for that, man,” he said. “I couldn’t fit the tights, and I sure as hell couldn’t do the action anymore.” With files from DurhamRegion.com