Denny Crews took his boat out onto Lake Erie June 17 to give his young granddaughter a closer look at the Fairport Harbor West Lighthouse.
But what started as a casual and fun journey soon turned into an urgent mission in which Crews played a key role in rescuing a distressed swimmer.
Crews encountered the emergency situation at about 3 p.m. June 17, when he launched his 15-foot inflatable raft with a 50-horsepower engine into Lake Erie. He and his 4-year-old granddaughter, Nena Shinabery of Chagrin Falls, had set out from the Fairport Harbor Port Authority boat launch ramp and docking site at the foot of Water Street in the village.
Their destination was the nearby Fairport Harbor West Breakwater Lighthouse, which is located off the shoreline of Painesville Township.
Crews, a longtime recreational boater who also worked 30 years as a commercial fisherman in Alaska, didn’t plan to venture far out into the lake that day.
“It was a real blustery day out there,” said Crews, who resides in Concord Township. “Pretty good waves at that point, but it was protected by the lighthouse, so I ran over there, and I just wanted to show my granddaughter the lighthouse.”
“That was when I heard real faint, ‘Help, I’m drowning.’ And at first I thought, someone was messing with me here. Kids up on the breakwater. But it sounded so forlorn, real weak. And so I look, and right in the shadow, right at the very tip of that jetty, holding on, was this guy.”
— Denny Crews
Crews maneuvered his boat into a position on the lake where he could take a picture of Nena with the lighthouse in the background.
“That was when I heard real faint, ‘Help, I’m drowning,’ ” Crews said. “And at first I thought, someone was messing with me here. Kids up on the breakwater. But it sounded so forlorn, real weak.”
Crews then decided to move his boat toward the northern end of the lighthouse breakwater, which has outer walls made of steel.
“And so I look, and right in the shadow, right at the very tip of that jetty, holding on, was this guy,” Crews said. “His head was kind of going down and coming up in the water, and I thought, that guy, he’s in big trouble.”
Crews directed his boat closer to the man and threw him a section of rope which was in the watercraft. But the man was so weak he couldn’t keep a grip on the rope.
Trying to hoist the man into the raft also was not feasible, Crews said.
“He was a big guy,” Crews said.
At that point, Crews decided to use the rope in a different way to keep the man from drowning.
“So I tied him up around the chest, as tight as I could, without him falling back in the water, but not keep him from breathing,” Crews said.
Crews made a 911 call with his hand that was not holding the rope tied around the man. He then used his free hand to back the boat up in short intervals until reaching a point closer to the lighthouse, where the breakwall is composed of stone
“There were a couple of guys fishing there,” Crews said. “I backed up right against the rock wall with the boat.”
One of the anglers held the boat, and the other jumped on board to help Crews pull the man into the raft.
The man’s time struggling in the water left him not only exhausted, but injured as well.
“His whole arm was all scraped up and bloodied from where he had been hanging onto that steel section of the breakwater out there,” Cruise said. “He also had fishing line all over him.”
Crews moved his boat to a section of the lake where the man was transferred directly onto a Coast Guard vessel.
Upon reaching shore, the man was transported by a Grand River Village Fire Department ambulance to University Hospitals TriPoint Medical Center in Concord Township.
The man told emergency responders that he had jumped off the breakwater to go swimming.
“Once in the water, he realized he wasn’t a strong swimmer and was unable to swim back and climb out,” according to a report from the Painesville Township Fire Department. “He continued to tread water for 15-20 minutes and then began to scream for help.”
The man’s name and other personal information were redacted from the fire department’s report, in compliance with the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy rule.
Crews described the experience of rescuing the man as “pretty harrowing.”
“He was so lucky that I just happened to be there,” Crews said. “Because he was about to go under. He didn’t have any more strength. He couldn’t even hold onto the side of the boat.”
Crews also commended his granddaughter Nena for the courage she displayed while witnessing the incident.
“That was kind of traumatic for her,” Crews said. “She was sitting next to me throughout this whole ordeal, which lasted about 15 to 20 minutes.”
