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Thin Ice Hero

Doug Hinds

Others in Local 1687, Sudbury, Ontario, talk of Doug Hinds incredible feat of saving a young womans life when a snowmobile crashed through the ice on Fairbanks Lake. But Doug sees it differently: "If only I could have gotten there a little faster, I might have been able to save that young man," the other snowmobiler whose body was found by divers the next day.

Doug Hinds is an expert, a scuba diving instructor and an experienced ice diver, who just happened to be watching from the deck of his home January 5, 2003, when four snowmobiles and an ATV went out on the ice. He grabbed his binoculars when he saw they were headed out toward ice only an inch thick. He was watching intently as one vehicle with two riders went under.

He ran to his own snowmobile, hooked his boat to it, raced out as far as the ice would carry, then unhooked the boat, started pushing it toward the disaster scene and was joined by two frantic members of the snowmobile party. "For about 50 yards we were running with the boat on good ice, and for another 50 yards it was cracking under our feet. There were about 70 yards of paddling before we got to the spot."

Brother Hinds found a young woman who "was just about finished. Her hands were cherry red and she couldnt talk at all. Another minute in that water and she wouldnt have made it." Hinds wife Karen tended to the hypothermia until the doctor arrived and treated the woman.

Hinds, a general foreman with Western Electric and a former president of Local 1687, was described as a "reluctant hero" by the Sudbury Star in its coverage of the miraculous recovery. The father of the young man who drowned told the Star that Hinds "should be recognized for what he did. He risked his own life to save that girl." And that girl, 24-year-old Liette Descoteaux, is doing fine and just wants to tell Hinds "thank you, thank you for saving my life."

IBEWCURRENTS

June 2003 IBEW Journal