We are writing to express our concern regarding the statements in the media regarding the five police officers who recently received medals for bravery. We write this letter as the two Thunder Bay Fire Rescue senior officers who were in command of this rescue.
To be clear we are not writing because of sour grapes. We certainly do not begrudge any emergency services provider receiving appropriate recognition where deserved. We simply want to set the record straight. Some statements attributed to the police officers involvement in this rescue are frankly not accurate. We find this deeply concerning.
The statement “Despite the low visibility, the officers located the wreck as it sank into Lake Superior, smashed out the windows and pulled the victim to safety” is not accurate; the vehicle sank to the bottom of Lake Superior with all windows unbroken and the woman still inside.
While it is true that police officers were on the scene and in the water, these officers did not even perform the rescue. Firefighters Tony Hockenhull and Harley Hakanen did. While under our supervision these two firefighters went above and beyond by violating departmental policy and going underwater in rescue gear not designed for this purpose to break the window and rescue the woman from the submerged vehicle.
We are proud of the work of all emergency services and very proud of Tony and Harley, neither of which sought any recognition for their heroic efforts.
Platoon Chief Val Lafontaine (retired) and District Chief Jon Swaggert (retired) Thunder Bay Fire/Rescue Service.
