News 3 is honored to be the media sponsor for the 2020 Valor Awards.
The Hampton Roads Chamber produces this event to honor the first responders who have gone beyond the call of duty during the past 12 months.
We will be sharing these stories of heroics all week.
The award is for Chesapeake Police officers who attempted to rescue a man who had fallen from a pier. They ended up having to save themselves as well.
Sgt. Brent Hunter with the Chesapeake Police Department explained the incident saying, “Dispatch received a call for a subject in the water over by the Oaklette Bridge. On the way, there they were advised; the updated call was they couldn’t hear the subject anymore in the water. They were at the end of the pier. It was off a private residence about 50 yards out into the water. By searching from the shoreline, in the water, when the father ended up calling over the officer McKenzie and saying hey he’s over here and he was floating underneath the end of the pier. Officer Scott and Officer McKenzie were able to pull the victim out of the water and up onto the pier. The victim was unconscious, hypothermic at that point, the two officers started to undress him, dry him off getting him into dry clothes, trying to resuscitate him. About that time is when I arrived and then advise them to go ahead and pick him up and carry him off the pier to the shoreline where the arriving medics were.”
“They were treating him from the water and as they were retrieving him from the water the dock they were standing on collapsed,” Chesapeake Police Chief Kelvin Wright said.
“I see the two of them go into the water. Officer Scott managed to maintain control of the victim keep him afloat, keep his head above the water. We got everybody back up on the pier. We got to get this guy to Shoreline, get him some help. So, we’re walking down the pier a little ways, the second section of the pier collapses. Not a good pier. At that point, the victim, myself, and Officer McKenzie go into the water. It was just frustrating for the victim. He went in the water. He was in the water originally and then the thing collapses and he ends up in the water two more times,” Sgt. Hunter said.
Join us on wtkr.com for a live broadcast of the Valor Awards on Monday August 10 at 12:45 p.m.
