Rescue copter crew pulls man from Tuolumne River west of Modesto

“God put me in that place at that moment,” Gary Bettencourt said of being outside about 7 a.m. Tuesday, feeding feral cats at his home of 26 years, the Shiloh River Resort RV park along the Tuolumne River west of Modesto.

In the quiet and chill of the morning, he said he heard “blood-curdling” cries for help and looked out at the river to see a head bobbing up and down in the fast-moving current.

He quickly yelled for a neighbor to call 911 and then began to follow along the riverbank, to keep an eye on the man so he could tell emergency personnel, when they arrived, where he last saw him. “He’d look at me and then go under the water, then come back up,” Bettencourt said. “It’s like he could hear me” but wasn’t reacting – perhaps in shock or under the influence of alcohol or drugs.”

The man’s face was beet red as he screamed for help, Bettencourt said, and he would move toward shore but then away again, likely just going where the current carried him.

Trying to keep up, Bettencourt said he fell in the mud and had his shoes come off but was determined not to lose sight of the man. Once the current carried him northwest toward the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge, the man’s cries likely would have been heard by no one. And much longer in the cold water, he might not have been able to yell at all.

Bettencourt said he got to a point he could find no way to continue, but at that point, shortly after 8 a.m., he could see a helicopter had arrived.

“We circled overhead about 10 to 15 minutes while in contact with the fire crew as they were trying to get to the patient,” said the pilot of the California Shock Trauma Air Rescue – Calstar for short – helicopter, who asked that only his first name, Joel, be used.

The fire crew was on land, following dirt roads along the levee, “and they came to kind of a split there and were cut off, out of options,” Joel said.

With the firefighters was California Highway Patrol Officer Matt Fowles, who said they, like Bettencourt, went through water and mud – and over and under fallen trees – trying to keep track of the man. To help the Calstar crew see where they were, Fowles said, he put his flashlight on strobe.

Fowles said when he first saw the man, “he was yelling and screaming ‘Help’ and stuff, and he sometimes would doggy paddle or flop around in the water. Other times, he would just put his hands above his head and float and not say a word.”

Modesto Fire Department was requested to assist at 8:24 a.m., spokeswoman Jessica Smart said, and arrived at 8:40, just after the helicopter crew rescued the man. River conditions made finding a suitable location to launch “a little tricky,” she said, but crews did find a spot that would have worked.

“We decided to land on the levee on the north side,” Calstar pilot Joel said. “It wasn’t just a sliver of land, it was almost a road. So we landed safely, the crew (two nurses) got out, and the current had pushed him to shore, so basically we were able to grab him from the shore.”

He then picked up two firefighters and Fowles to help prep and load the patient onto the Calstar helicopter. “He was going into shock,” Fowles said, adding that the man was balling up tightly and was unable to help in the removal of his wet clothing. “We were able to get his clothes cut off, get him wrapped in a blanket and into a hypothermic bag and onto the stretcher.”

The man was taken to a local hospital for treatment “for a low body temperature due to exposure to the cold water,” according to the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department. A CHP copter then got the firefighters and officer from the levee.

While acknowledging that air-ambulance crews don’t often do the rescues themselves, Joel downplayed the incident as nothing much beyond the ordinary. But Woodland Avenue Fire Protection District Chief Mike Passalaqua was grateful and said it was “something we’ve never seen before.”

“They say they never do that, and apparently seemed to need to do that at this point,” he added.

Passalaqua saw the man prior to the rescue and said he was conscious and alert as he floated downriver and did not appear to be drowning. But he did not respond to directions to steer himself to the river’s edge or grab and hold onto something like a rock.

At one point, the man did latch onto a bush sticking up from the water, but then appeared to push himself off and continue downstream the chief said. It’s a miracle the man reportedly still was conscious and alert after being pulled from the cold water, Passalaqua added.

A U.S. Geological Service website says the temperature of the river as it flowed through Modesto on Tuesday morning was barely 52 degrees. The chief estimated the man was carried between a mile or two downriver before being rescued.

The National Center for Cold Water Safety says being in water between 50 and 60 degrees is “very dangerous/immediately life-threatening.” It can result in total loss of breathing control, leaving the victim “unable to control gasping and hyperventilation.”

An update on the man’s condition was not available Tuesday afternoon. Neither was his name or information on how and where he came to be in the river.

This story was originally published April 11, 2017 at 11:47 AM with the headline "Rescue copter crew pulls man from Tuolumne River west of Modesto."