TROOPER, AIDED BY OTHERS, SAVE 90-YEAR OLD MAN FROM JOHN DAY RIVER (PHOTOS)
Posted: May 20th, 2010 9:14 PM
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An Oregon State Police (OSP) trooper assisted by an OSP sergeant, Grant County deputies and numerous others, saved a 90-year old man from the John Day River Thursday afternoon. The man was quickly succumbing to hypothermia as he clung to his submerged car in the middle of the river. The trooper put himself at significant risk, entering the river and performing a swift water rescue before being pulled back to shore.
According to OSP Sergeant Gordon Larson, on May 20, 2010 at approximately 1:55 p.m. Grant County 9-1-1 received a report of a car in the John Day River in the Picture Gorge area of the John Day Fossil Beds National Park. The Picture Gorge is about five miles west of Dayville in Grant County.
Upon arrival, officers and emergency responders spotted the car submerged in the middle of the river which was at high levels due to recent rain in the area. A man, identified as MILTON PEARLMAN, age 90, from northeast Portland, had reportedly been in the water for over 30 minutes when officers arrived. PEARLMAN was quickly becoming hypothermic, so OSP Trooper Marv Ritter donned a life jacket and tied a line to him to attempt a swift water rescue.
Ritter entered the river several hundred feet above the car and was able to swim to the middle of the river as the current carried him downstream. Ritter grabbed onto the car and PEARLMAN, placed a life jacket on him and was pulled back to shore by numerous emergency personnel, deputies and Sergeant Larson.
Immediately upon returning to shore, PEARLMAN was treated by medical responders and quickly rushed to the John Day Hospital for treatment of hypothermia.
Ritter's lifesaving effort was helped by other officers, volunteer ambulance and fire personnel from Dayville, ODOT and numerous citizens who stopped at the scene.
No information is available at this time about how PEARLMAN and the car got into the river.
Ritter works at the OSP John Day work site.
More information may be available on Friday by calling the John Day work site at 541-575-1363.
Photograph Source: Oregon State Police
### www.oregon.gov/OSP ###
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