Distress Call at 1 am
THE SAN QUENTIN, CALIFORNIA, PRISON fire brigade was called out early Wednesday morning around 1 am when a guard heard cries for help coming from offshore. The officers spotted a man and a woman in the water in obvious distress and sent the alarm. While other area fire/rescue agencies were responding, the prisoner-manned fire brigade arrived and wade out into the treacherous waters to pull the two victims ashore. Reuters continues the REPORT:
The unidentified woman, who had been wearing a life jacket, was treated for minor injuries and released but her companion, 44-year-old James Laurel, was "unresponsive and struggling" when rescuers arrived and went into cardiac arrest on the shore, Robinson said.
Although San Quentin firefighters performed CPR and other life-saving efforts, Laurel was later pronounced dead at Marin General Hospital.
According to officials from the Marin Sheriff's Department, the pair left a dock on Corte Madera Creek at about 10 p.m. on Tuesday in a 14-foot fiberglass motorboat that soon developed engine trouble while in the bay.
Laurel fell overboard without a life vest while trying to restart the engine. He then capsized the boat while trying to crawl back on board, said deputies.
It isn't known how long they were in the water before the current pulled them to the prison boundary, but the sheriff's department says that alcohol played a role in the accident and that the boat was obviously stolen. All of the identifying marks and numbers on the hull and the engine had been obliterated.
This stock photo from the Calif. Dept. of Corrections
shows the area where the incident took place.
Reuters continues:
San Quentin, where California's Death Row inmates are housed, has a fire station housed by a staff firefighter and ten prisoners who must qualify for the squad.
"You have to behave well, and you have to be sentenced for a crime that has no violence or sex-type offenses. They are low-level low-risk security inmates," Robinson said, adding that most of their duties take place inside the prison walls.
KTVU-TV carries a report that includes interviews with two of the inmate/firefighters HERE.
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