Rescued teen recalls details of near-drowning
By Vicki Viotti and Kawehi Haug
Advertiser Staff Writers
It was a team effort that saved 16-year-old Pat Savage from drowning at Waimea Bay on Monday. And the very first to rush in was his buddy and calabash brother, Eli Blanchard, with whom he was having a friendly breath-holding contest when he almost met a tragic end.
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Now Savage, back from the brink, is off the respirator but in an understandable fog about the details.
Pat Savage relaxed in his hospital bed at The Queen's Medical Center yesterday as he tried to recall his near-drowning experience at Waimea Bay earlier in the week. His pulse and breathing were restored by friend and calabash brother Eli Blanchard, right, Marine Cpl. Quentin Gwynn, visitor Adam Smith and others on the beach.
"I remember being underwater, and then all of a sudden I was in the ambulance," he said yesterday, reclining in his bed at The Queen's Medical Center.
"Do you remember being strapped on the board?" Blanchard asked.
"Yes. I think so," Savage paused. "There was a lady on the ambulance, right?" His friend nodded.
Blanchard said when he realized Savage had blacked out, he hauled him to the lower reaches of a rock ledge and started chest compressions.
Savage began gagging and coughing up water and mucus, and Blanchard called for help. Marine Cpl. Quentin Gwynn, visitor Adam Smith, fire rescuers and others answered the call, helping to bring Savage back. Yesterday he was recovering and visited with family and friends in a sunny hospital room.
"It's good to see him laughing and talking, when two nights ago we didn't know what would happen," said Becky Blanchard, Eli's mother and Savage's legal guardian.
The family has been told the Kahuku High School senior may be discharged today to return home to Pupukea.
Life also returned to normal yesterday morning for Gwynn, who reported to the USS Bonhomme Richard, bound for its San Diego home port. On the ship he hosted Smith, both of them downplaying their good deed.
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"I did what any other decent person would've done," said Smith, who is visiting from Maryland. "Someone needed help, and I did what I could do."
Quentin Gwynn, left, chats with Adam Smith, 16, on Gwynn's ship, the USS Bonhomme Richard. The two saved a North Shore teen, but Gwynn was robbed for his trouble.
While Blanchard went to help emergency teams reach the scene, Gwynn and Smith found that Savage had stopped breathing and lacked a pulse. Estimates of the time Savage had been underwater ranged from two to three minutes.
"I think it was about a minute it took us to get his pulse starting again, and a minute or two after that he started breathing," Gwynn said. "It was really, really labored breathing; he was only getting a few drops of air."
Groups of swimmers engaged in a popular Waimea diversion — leaping from the massive rock in the bay — contributed boogie boards in the effort to help firefighters float Savage to shore, said fire Capt. Stephen Johnson.
When Gwynn could step away from the rescue efforts, he learned of the theft of his possessions.
Since then, pledges of help and support have poured in. KHVH talk-radio host Mike Buck yesterday fielded calls from listeners offering to replace the lost camera and other items.
"It's about $600 worth of stuff," Gwynn said. "It's no biggie; it can all be replaced."
More important was the well-being of the patient, with whom Gwynn had a brief conversation yesterday.
Savage, for his part, maintained a teenager's bravado. No, the accident hadn't made him afraid of holding his breath. The boys enjoy free diving and were practicing expanding their lung power.
"I'm pretty good at holding my breath," Savage said with a grin. "I counted up to 140-something."
Savage had been counting, eyes closed, while he lounged about nine feet down, his arms anchored in the sandy bottom. Blanchard had taken an insufficient gulp of air, so he surfaced and then returned to check on his friend.
"I looked at him, and usually he'd be looking back," Blanchard said. "So I hit him a couple of times, and he just floated a bit, and then I knew he passed out."
He used his junior lifeguard training to do chest compressions before calling for help.
Becky Blanchard expressed gratitude to all who helped, and reminded Eli, "if it wasn't for you, Pat would have drowned. ... Nobody would have known he was down there."
Eli and Pat, calabash brothers, shrug it off. The two are "accountability partners" at their church, North Shore Christian Fellowship, Blanchard said, so he was just doing his job.
"It's just one of those things God throws your way," he said.
