(Okoboji)– We’re learning additional details into a near drowning Thursday on West Lake Okoboji. Rescue crews were called around 2:15 pm after getting a report of a man who had been pulled out of the lake just west of where the Inn used to be. The victim was on a dock and CPR was being administered.
We have since learned the name of the person who pulled the man out of the lake. He is 17-year-old Calvin Grosvenor of Okoboji. KUOO news spoke with Calvin this (Fri.) morning and told us what happened…
“So yesterday I really wanted to go in and get a job so I went down and talked to my old scuba instructor, Jose, about getting a number for a guy who needed help for some work. When I showed up Jose was talking to a guy who wanted to scuba dive, he was in town for the day and wanted to go alone, but Jose insisted that he goes with a buddy or a partner. He couldn’t leave the shop. So what I did is I offered to go out with him and go out for a day and have some fun.”
Calvin says he and the man went to a popular scuba diving location just off from where The Inn used to be…
“We were about five minutes into the dive and he was starting to lag behind and I was making, I kept going around, turning around making sure he was okay by giving him hand signals and everything, since you can’t really verbally communicate under water. He kept saying he’s okay, that he’s okay, and then one time when I turned around he was kind of seized up, shaking, and just kind of falling down into the mud. His regulator had fallen out of his mouth and when I saw that I swam over to his side, grabbed him, and did what I was taught in my scuba diving training. I filled up my buoyancy control device, or BCD, floated up to the surface as quick as possible, and I ran, or I paddled atleast a hundred yards back to shore where there was a lady waiting on a dock and she was wondering what we were doing. I just yelled help, he’s drowning! At that instant she called for help, she called 911, and there was a construction crew on the house that we went up to and they ran down and grabbed him and pulled him up onto the dock and once we got his equipment off I ran down and helped perform CPR on him. And once the ambulance arrived he had a slight pulse and he was starting to breathe slightly. Otherwise he probably would have drowned.”
The man, who’s from Missouri, was taken by ambulance to Lakes Regional Healthcare and was transferred to Avera McKennan Hospital in Sioux Falls. He is expected to recover. Calvin says he learned the man was one certification away from becoming a master diver.
Calvin offers this advice to anyone who might find themselves in a similar situation some time…
“Just make sure you stay calm and get, if you have the chance, get training so you know what to do in that situation. I went through, I was in Boy Scouts for a little bit and that’s kind of where I learned how to do CPR, and then the, I would recommend getting some scuba diving certification. This was my first dive without an instructor and I was, thanks to my instructor, I was actually prepared for the worse possible scenario.”
Calvin is the son of John and Teresa Grosvenor. He became a certified diver this past November. He turns 18 in just a few days.
You can listen to our complete interview with Calvin Grosvenor by clicking here:
