Quick Action Saves Pair From Drowning Lake Resident, Passersby Spot Couple Clinging To Capsized Canoe

A dawn canoe trip on Hayden Lake turned treacherous Thursday when the craft tipped over and dumped the paddlers into the cold water.

They were soon saved by a lake resident and a passerby.

The screams of Jason B. Giddings, 23, and Margaret A. Armstrong, 23, caught the attention of John Wheeler’s Chesapeake Bay retriever.

The agitated dog prompted Wheeler to look outside, and he saw the capsized canoe about 150 feet from shore near Tobler’s Marina.

About the same time, approximately 5:45 a.m., Mark and Terri Ackerman were driving by on the way to work.

“I thought it was just another floating dock out there,” Mark Ackerman said.

But his wife saw an arm waving, so they stopped and ran to shore.

“I yelled, ‘Do you need some help,’ and he was real panicky,” Ackerman said. Terri Ackerman used her cellular phone to call 911 while her husband started looking for a boat.

About that time, Wheeler was running out of his house to his dock and flatbottomed bass boat. The two men didn’t talk. They just jumped in the boat and hurried out to the canoe.

“They looked pretty cold,” Wheeler said.

Giddings told his rescuers to pull Armstrong out first, Ackerman said.

“A few more minutes and I don’t think they could have hung on, because the water was so cold,” he said. “It was kind of sick feeling. They didn’t have no life jackets.

“They’re real fortunate they didn’t drown.”

The Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department arrived and gave the victims Breathalyzer tests for alcohol.

“Both were at or over the legal limit,” said Capt. Ben Wolfinger.

Giddings was cited for gross negligent operation of a vessel, which carries a maximum penalty of 30 days in jail and a $300 fine.

The drinking and lack of life jackets led to the citation, Wolfinger said.

“Both were obviously showing signs of hypothermia,” he said.

Ann Van Buren, boating education coordinator with the state Department of Parks and Recreation, said most boating deaths in Idaho result from similar circumstances.

The cold water causes people to cramp up or slip into unconsciousness, she said. Unconsciousness can set in after 30 minutes in water that is below 50 degrees, which was Hayden Lake’s temperature.

Wolfinger said the couple was in the water about six minutes.

“Cold water takes heat out of your body 30 times faster than cold air,” she said. “Alcohol complicates the picture. Heat loss is greater.”

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