When a 39-year-old, Kitchener, Ontario, man and his 12-year-old daughter struggled on Aug. 27, 2020, in Lake Erie off of Port Colborne, Ontario, Katelynn Saengdala, a 32-year-old manufacturing worker of Kitchener, immediately responded, despite being in recovery from a spinal fracture suffered in a car accident one month earlier. A rip current had carried the pair away from shore and Saengdala swam after them, reaching them at a point about 50 feet from shore. There the father, Jeremy D. Figueroa, struggled to stay afloat while keeping daughter Laila M. Zorychta from submerging. Saengdala grasped each of them by one arm and kicked to move them toward shore. Towing both of them was taxing and at a point about halfway to shore, where water was still more than 6 feet deep, Saengdala struggled to keep going. She was nearly exhausted. A man with a child’s flotation toy arrived and aided Figueroa and Laila the remaining distance to shore. Saengdala exited the water on her own. Figueroa had swallowed water, was nearly exhausted and short of breath, and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. Laila was checked at the scene by medics but did not need further treatment. Saengdala suffered back pain for the following month after the incident, but she recovered.
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