Casey Marie Peirce saved a man and woman from drowning, Canmore, Alberta, July 26, 2008. A man and woman, 49, called for help after their 16-foot aluminum canoe capsized on Spray Lakes Reservoir. They held to the canoe, becoming hypothermic in the mountain lake’s 50-degree water. Peirce, 30, communications manager, and her parents and sister were riding bicycles on the bank in that vicinity, which was remote, and became aware of the situation. Peirce removed her shoes, entered the water, and swam to the couple, who were at about midpoint in the 2,460-foot-wide lake. Grasping a rope attached to the canoe and wrapping it around her wrist, Peirce began to swim back to the bank, towing the canoe and its victims. The cold sapped her strength in the arduous swim, which took about 45 minutes. When she was close to the bank, her father threw one end of a rope, with a buoy attached, to her. She grasped it, and her father pulled her, with the canoe, the rest of the way in. Peirce’s parents took the couple from the lake and tended to them as Peirce, too tired to move, rested in wadable water until she too was removed from the lake. Peirce was nearly exhausted, hypothermic, and sore, and she developed a cold but recovered.
81455 – 9274
81455-9274