North Vancouver boat captain honoured by Coast Guard for Indian Arm rescue

Boat captain honoured

A small-boat captain from North Vancouver has received a commendation from the Canadian Coast Guard for saving the life of a senior who fell into the cold waters of Indian Arm on Thursday after becoming lost on a hiking trail.

Emma Elvin, 23, is being recognized for physically dragging the hypothermic man out of the water and immediately taking steps to warm him while calling the Coast Guard for help.

“Your actions went beyond the call of duty for a civilian bystander,” wrote Tyler Brand, superintendent of the Coast Guard’s western region in the letter of commendation, adding, “Your background as a marine professional was evident in your handling of this crisis…. You saved a life.”

The drama on the water unfolded Thursday afternoon, Feb. 5, shortly after Emma Elvin had returned home from work.

Elvin grew up on the water in a boat-access home on Indian Arm, where she still lives.

A qualified marine captain, Elvin works for Prism Marine driving water taxi for work crews heading up Indian Arm.

 

 

On Thursday, Elvin had just come home from work and had docked her own 19-foot aluminum boat at her dock. “I still had my steel toes on,” she said.

She was about to sit out on her deck when she heard a noise that sounded like a grunt.

That’s when she saw the fully submerged kayak, and a little further out “a guy in dark clothes hanging on to my neighbour’s dock.”

The man was struggling, she added, with his head slipping in and out of the water.

“I yelled to him, ‘Don’t worry. I’m coming to get you,’” she said.

Then she got back in her boat and rushed over as fast as she could.

When she got to the man, “He was barely treading water,” she said. “He was very tired and he was quite pale.”

Elvin tried to haul the man on to the dock by grabbing his arm, but he was too heavy in his waterlogged clothes.

She knew she didn’t have much time though.

The man’s smart watch had recorded the point when he fell in the water and had been logging it as exercise, said Elvin. It indicated he’d been in the water over half an hour.

As someone with marine first aid certification, Elvin knew the man likely didn’t have the capacity to move anymore.

She found an extra rope on the dock and tied it around his torso. She then pulled him towards the shore and then ran down and waded knee deep into the water.

“I put my arms under his arms and bodily dragged him on to the shore,” she said.

Elvin said she knew that the man’s wet clothes weren’t helping, so she took those off and wrapped the man in towels and blankets that her boyfriend brought from the house.

She asked if the man had any medical conditions. He told her he was diabetic.

As it turned out, her boyfriend is also diabetic so had a glucose monitor they could use to assess the man’s condition.

The man was stable at that point but he was still very cold, she said.

Elvin decided it was time to call the Coast Guard to get the man to medical help.

While waiting for the Coast Guard cutter to arrive, Elvin said she learned about how the man ended up in the water.

 

 

He told her he had been hiking the Baden Powell Trail and got lost. Somehow he ended up on a rough path leading from Quarry Rock down to a section of boat-access homes on Indian Arm.

“He couldn’t find the road,” she said. When he arrived at the shore, nobody was home to summon help, but the hiker saw a kayak and figured he could make it back to Deep Cove, she said.

When he got in, however, the kayak soon flipped over, the man told her.

When the Coast Guard cutter Laredo Sound arrived, the hiker – bundled in some dry clothes Elvin’s boyfriend grabbed from the house – was taken by ambulance to Lions Gate Hospital to get checked out and was later released.

“He did call me from the ambulance,” she said. “He was very grateful and very kind.”

Two kayakers who had stopped by to help – including a retired North Vancouver RCMP staff sergeant – pumped out the kayak and got it floating again, she said.

As someone who’s spent her whole life around the water, Elvin said it’s not the first time she’s been involved in rescues.

“We get big gusts of wind that come through when the weather changes,” she said. “People flip over. We’ve rescued them quite a few times.”

In addition to her water taxi work, Elvin also works for C-Tow Marine Assistance.

“That involves boats that have broken down or are sinking or sunk,” she said.

Elvin credits her marine first aid training with being able to think and act calmly under pressure. She said everyone who is around the water should take the training. And wear a life jacket.

After growing up on Indian Arm, the water has always felt like home, she said.

“I had to take a boat to get to and from anywhere I wanted to go,” she said. “Being able to work on it doesn’t even feel like a job.”

She adds she’d like to join the Coast Guard one day.

As a young woman working in a male-dominated industry, Elvin says she does get questioned on whether she is qualified. “I always keep my certifications on hand with me,” she said.

“Women make up less than two percent of the international working marine industry.”

Elvin said she’s grateful that both Prism and C-Tow have given her the opportunity to work and have supported her.

”I’m a woman, I’m a captain and I’m good at my job,” she said.

Meanwhile the hiker recovered sufficiently to take off on a sunny vacation to Mexico with his family.

Elvin said he’s probably appreciating the warmth.