It was a winter day that most of us would have wanted to be bundled up in bed or sitting warm by the fire.
But for police officers Andrew Bishop, Ashley St. John and North Bay firefighters Derrick Desilets, and John Lazaridis, they battled frigid and windy conditions to save a life.
On February 25th, 2016 a man was reported to have wandered onto Lake Nipissing on the dark stormy night.
See: Man rescued off Lake Nipissing
“The day started out with a phone call. We started our shift a little early to attend to a missing persons call,” recalled OPP Sergeant Andrew Bishop.
“It was very stormy and windy when we got out onto the lake, very minimal visibility a couple hundred yards that type of thing. We set out onto the lake not knowing what we were going to find. All too often we find a victim and in this case we found a subject laying down in the snow, partially covered by snow and we didn’t believe he was alive at the time when we first located him.”
However, Constable St. John of the North Bay Police determined that the man was still breathing.
“We later found a pulse down in his core. We couldn’t detect a pulse anywhere on his limbs,” said Bishop.
“Fortunately we were able to warm him on the ice and transport him back to safety. I truly believe that if we had been 30 minutes later he would have been completely covered in snow and we would not have found him.”
Firefighter Derrick Desilets felt it was a tremendous team effort.
“It is nice to get recognized for sure, it’s a great honour,” he said.
“We have lots of calls and see many different things on a daily basis and a lot of them are negative and it is nice once in a while to get a call for a positive outcome and that’s what we had with this one. It’s definitely memorable. It’s one of those calls you remember your whole career.”
The four rescuers received OPP Commissioner’s Citations for Lifesaving as part of the Ontario Provincial Police Northeast Region Award Ceremony at the Best Western in North Bay.
Firefighter John Lazaridis says it was inspiring listening to the other heroic stories and people that were also honoured on this day.
“Just random people helping out people who are in need in Northern Ontario, it was awesome to hear those stories,” said Lazaridis.
“It’s very humbling and I am very honoured to receive this award and just very thankful to for the outcome of the missing person that we did find and provided first aid to because as far as I know to this day he is still alive and in our jobs a lot of the times we don’t get to see the positive outcomes of things and we see the other side.”
