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Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Wrightsville police make midnight water rescue

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Around 12:30 a.m. Sunday, June 7, Wrightsville Beach police officers made a rare water rescue to save an intoxicated man attempting to flee law enforcement by leaving his car at the end of Bermuda Drive and swimming into Little Lollipop Bay.

Shortly after midnight, the suspect, 28-year-old Daniel Garcia from Willow Springs, N.C., backed his vehicle into the piling of a house at 7 Stone St. When he drove away from the scene, deputies from the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Department began pursuit.

Wrightsville Beach Police Capt. P. Burdette said Garcia drove erratically through the town’s central business district. As the sheriff’s deputies closed in on the suspect on North Lumina Avenue, Garcia realized he was being followed, Burdette said, so Garcia attempted to evade the officers by turning left onto Parmele Boulevard. He turned left again onto Bermuda Drive, which dead-ends at Little Lollipop Bay.

Meanwhile, two Wrightsville Beach police officers, Sgt. J. Windham and Lt. J. Bishop, activated their emergency lights to rush to the scene. Bishop said, when they arrived at the end of Bermuda Drive, he saw the suspect’s vehicle parked at the edge of the bulkhead, inches from going in the water. The sheriff’s deputies were shining their flashlights on Garcia, who was in the water about 30 or 40 feet from shore.

“We were trying to get him to come back to shore,” Bishop said. “He wouldn’t listen to us, or he couldn’t understand us.”

At first, Bishop said, Garcia was treading water, but then he appeared to be struggling to stay above the surface.

“His head would go underwater,” Bishop said. “So I started to take off my duty belt and sergeant Windham was looking for some kind of flotation device.”

Windham found a kayak at a nearby house, 19 Bermuda Drive, but it was locked up. Then Bishop noticed a paddleboard lying in the yard.

“I grabbed the paddleboard, put it in the water and paddled out to him,” he said. “By the time I paddled out to him he was unconscious, not responsive, so I pulled him from his waistband up onto the paddleboard and paddled him back to the bulkhead.”

Windham jumped in and helped pull Garcia up onto the grass. By then, two additional Wrightsville Beach officers, S. Taube and J. Smith, had arrived. Garcia was not breathing, so Taube and Smith performed CPR. Garcia was also hooked up to an automated external defibrillator (AED), but no shock was given because he had a slight pulse.

Around 12:45 a.m., the Wrightsville Beach Fire Department and Emergency Medical Services arrived. The officers had restored Garcia’s breathing, but he was intubated as he was transported to New Hanover County Regional Medical Center.

Burdette said Garcia was unresponsive throughout the day Sunday but in the evening he was taken off the ventilator.

“He’s been breathing on his own, so he’s going to be OK,” Burdette said. “. . . It was fortunate my officers risked their safety to go in the water and were able to get him out.”

The officers don’t undergo training specifically for water rescues, Bishop said, so he relied on his years of surfing experience to save Garcia. As he pulled Garcia onto the paddleboard, though, Bishop said he tore the tendons in his pinkie finger, an injury that will require surgery.

“I didn’t realize it at the time,” he said. “Somebody had said, ‘who’s bleeding?’ And I started looking around and I looked down at my hand and I’m like, ‘I’m bleeding.’ Then I realized I couldn’t move my pinkie finger.”

Bishop said even though police officers don’t usually make water rescues, he knew he had to act to save Garcia’s life.

“Right then, there was no time to wait for ocean rescue or the Coast Guard,” he said. “I was afraid at that point if we didn’t get to him, we wouldn’t get to him at all . . . we wouldn’t be able to find him.”

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