LAKE MILTON Residents honored for saving fisherman from drowning

By IAN HILL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
LAKE MILTON -- Five local residents were set to receive a state award today for their efforts to save a fisherman from drowning in April.
Those expected to receive the Lifesaving Award are Pam Rusk and Gary Fife, both of North East River Road, Milton Township; township volunteer firefighters Mike Bruss and Harold Maynard; and township police officer Mike Saltsman.
The five helped rescue Philip Owens of Parma from drowning near the Lake Milton dam April 15.
"These five I felt were the key people that saved his life," said Lake Milton State Park Manager Barbara Neill. She said it is only the second time the award has been given out in the park; the first award was given to a lifeguard who saved a child from drowning near Craig Beach in 1994.
The five were set to receive plaques from Dan West, chief of the state division of parks and recreation, in a ceremony at Lake Milton state park.
Group effort
Both Bruss and Maynard said they were surprised and pleased to receive the award. They added, however, that they don't deserve all the credit for the rescue.
"It was more of a group effort," Maynard said. "We probably had 40 people out there that night."
Bruss said Owens probably wouldn't have been rescued if Rusk and Fife hadn't heard his cries for help and called 911.
Owens went into the lake in front of the flow pipes next to the dam about 9 p.m. to try to rescue his son, Kurt Owens, 21. The two had been fishing from the platform on top of the flow pipes, and the younger Owens had slipped and fallen into the lake.
Neill said when water is pouring out of the 5-foot-wide, 30-inch-high pipes as it was that night, it can create a whirlpool. Maynard said there was an undertow, and that "it's almost like if you went whitewater rafting."
The water temperature was about 41 degrees.
Phillip Owens' cries for help carried across the lake to the homes of Fife and Rusk, who called 911. Rescue workers from Lake Milton, North Jackson and Craig Beach responded.
The rescue
Bruss and Maynard searched the lake's west side and found Phillip Owens in front of the flow pipes about 11:40 p.m. They climbed down the concrete, took off their firefighter coveralls and fashioned a noose, which they draped around the fisherman.
"It's one of those things you don't take time to think about," Maynard said. "There is no alternative."
The two firefighters then pulled Phillip Owens to the concrete divider and placed him in a lifesaving basket, which was used to lift him to Saltsman and other police and emergency workers on the grass above.
Kurt Owens drowned. His body was found about 7:30 the next morning.
hill@vindy.com