14 DAY TRIAL // A dispatcher taking a 911 call about a kayaking incident in Wahkiakum County, Washington state on Sunday, has sent out her own family members to rescue a stranded woman.
The caller was stuck on a log piling on a jetty after her kayak sank, as currents near the jetty flipped it.
The woman was boating in the Cathlamet Channel on the Columbia river, at a time when water temperature registered at 47F (8.7 C), The Daily News indicated.
911 operator Raedyn Grasseth was swift to alert the sheriff's office, but didn't wait until they sent out a patrol boat.
Grasseth knew that, until help arrived, it could be too late for the 45-year-old kayaker, so she called her mother, an experienced boater herself.
“Jetties are very dangerous. The currents around them are horrible. It sounds like her kayak just got sucked toward the jetty and went down.
“[The caller] hung onto the jetty until she could climb up and get on to as much of the log piling as she could and waited,” Grasseth describes.
Her mom, Cindy Faubion, who has been kayaking in the area for years, brought other members of the family out on a kayak and a skiff, and they were able to safely bring the 911 caller ashore.
“I knew they could be there within five to 10 minutes,” Grasseth says.
“She’s lucky she’s alive, plain and simple,” she adds.
That's not the only call Grasseth got about stranded tourists on the river that night. Two people hiking from Skamokawa Vista Park were trapped by the tide around Three Tree Point.
Authorities were able to get them out and transport them to Elochoman Slough Marina before 11:30 p.m.
“They were stuck, surrounded by water, and couldn’t go anywhere. It was so late at night,” said Grasseth, who didn’t know how long the hikers waited before calling for help.
“They had a fire but were running out of wood quickly,” Grasseth explains.