GROSSE POINTE SHORES, Mich. (WXYZ) — If you walk into a restaurant or business in Grosse Pointe Shores, chances are they’re talking about the water rescue that happened early Thursday morning.
Police cars and firetrucks lined Lake Shore Drive during the Thursday morning commute, the remnants of a rescue mission performed by Officer Tony Spina. Spina, who is a certified dive master, was the first officer to respond to a 9-1-1 call — a car had been driven into Lake Saint Clair and was sinking.
“It’s the kind of rescue that makes you proud,” said Chief John Schulte, who was standing alongside the shoulder of Lake Shore Road near Lochmoor Boulevard where the car crashed into the water.
It’s still not known what caused the driver to crash into the water. He never spoke with 9-1-1 operators directly, in fact, it was an OnStar operators that radio’d local emergency responders letting them know that the car was sinking into the lake, and that they had just lost contact with the driver.
“Obviously it’s dark out,” said Officer Spina, recalling the rescue. “There’s no street lights illuminating the lake but I could see taillights out 20-30 yards in the water.”
He called out for the person and ran up and down the shoreline with a flashlight — he heard a voice, but it was faint. That’s when he made a last request before jumping in, he yelled out, “I need a medic.”
According to Spina, he held onto a portion of the iron that is sticking out of the concrete seawall — the man was struggling to get to shore, but he came close enough that Spina was able to grab him and pull him in front of the officer as he essentially bear hugged the man into the wall.
“I just kept telling him, ‘I’ve got you, I’ve got you.’”
The man continued to thrash, but that’s when a giant wave carried the two men out of the water and on top of the seawall — Spina said the man was so scared he continued to kick, but he eventually calmed him down. Both men freezing cold and wet, waited as medics rushed to their aide.
“I may have been in the water, but it was a collective effort,” said Spina, a veteran diver who had trained for something like this but admitted he’d never experienced a rescue like this one.
There was no wet suit, no rope, no safety restraints — Spina said that in a perfect world there would have been time to retrieve the types of things you train for in a swift water rescue, but in this case he chocked it up to luck.
Asked how he enjoyed a warm shower after he finally warmed up, he laughed.
“It was nice, a hot shower felt pretty good.”
“He is a trained diver, but he was not prepared for that at the time,” said Chief Schulte. “He is a top-notch officer and he ended up in the water without even thinking about it, he did what he had to do.”
Just got done listening to the 911 audio of a Grosse Pointe Shores Officer who jumped into Lake St. Clair to rescue a guy who drove his car into the river... this is some of the audio. We are about to talk to the man on @wxyzdetroit. pic.twitter.com/vsPLRqkd8E
— Matthew Smith (@MattSmithWXYZ) December 27, 2018
