Officer rescues kayaker from lake
A Donegal Township police officer jumped into action and the chilly waters of Dutch Fork Lake early Sunday afternoon to help a woman who had fallen from a kayak.
Officer Jack Camerson was the first to arrive at the scene. After securing his equipment, he jumped into the lake and went out to help the woman, said police Chief John Yancosek.
“I believe it was her husband who made the call to 911 to report she was in the water,” Yancosek said. “She was unable to get out of the water because of the steepness of the embankment, plus there was nothing for her to grab onto so she could pull herself out. She held onto her husband’s kayak.”
The West Alexander and Claysville volunteer fire departments also responded.
The middle-aged woman, who was not identified by authorities, was about 15 feet from shore when Camerson went in to help her, said West Alexander fire Chief Eric Graham.
Firefighters used ropes to pull them up the bank. Graham believes she was in the water, which he estimated to be about 40 degrees, for 15 to 20 minutes before help arrived.
“The officer went above and beyond the call of duty,” said Graham, who is a state trooper. “He saw what needed to be done and just did it.”
Camerson, who was treated at the scene for hypothermia, did not get the name of the woman or her husband as an ambulance crew took her for treatment at Washington Hospital, Yancosek said. The woman had lost feeling in her legs. The husband followed his wife to the hospital.
“He was in one ambulance, and she was in the other,” the chief said.
Camerson has been a Donegal police officer for about two years, working as a part-time officer for about a year before he became a full-time officer a year ago.