Editorial: Heroic effort

Posted 8/25/16

Angus Davis was enjoying a typical Tuesday evening, reading his young kids a bedtime story before tucking them in for the night.

Then the screaming started.

“My wife said …

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Editorial: Heroic effort

Posted

Angus Davis was enjoying a typical Tuesday evening, reading his young kids a bedtime story before tucking them in for the night.

Then the screaming started.

“My wife said something’s going on on the water,” the Poppasquash Road resident said. “A couple guys were screaming and shouting for help out there. We couldn’t see anything, but we heard them.”

Mr. Davis ran to the water, where he learned a boat had sunk in Bristol Harbor and two men were in trouble. Despite the dark of night, and disregarding his own safety, Mr. Davis jumped in his inflatable boat and blindly started heading toward the sound of the men’s shouts. Guided only by their voices and a small flashlight, Mr. Davis made it to the men, finding them clinging to about two feet of the boat’s bow that was still sticking up from the water.

He pulled one man into his boat and attempted to get the sunken vessel’s captain to follow, but the captain “wanted to go down with his ship,” so to speak. It was only after the Bristol Fire Department’s Marine 1 vessel arrived that they were finally able to convince the man to leave his boat behind and climb aboard to safety.

In talking about the incident Wednesday, Mr. Davis was quick to credit the fire department, Harbormaster’s office, police and all first responders for their heroic efforts. He was particularly impressed by the Bristol Fire Department — a volunteer department — for their fast response.

“No one is paying these guys the big bucks to deal with this kind of non-sense. And they were there within minutes of us calling,” Mr. Davis said. “The credit all goes to the Bristol Fire Department.”

Firefighters, police and all first responders certainly deserve a whole lot of credit for their work Tuesday and every day, but Mr. Davis is being overly humble when he says they deserve it all. After all, they weren’t the first ones there. He was. 

He would probably say that’s only because he was closer, which is true. But there’s more to it than that. He acted. Despite the darkness; despite not knowing exactly what he was heading into; despite the potential danger to himself, he didn’t hesitate. He didn’t wait for the authorities to handle it. We’d all like to think we would do the same, but we all know that’s not necessarily true.

Mr. Davis talked about the job of the firefighters, police, Coast Guard members and all who responded so fast to the potential crisis. He talked about the sense of community they inspired in him. But he failed to mention himself and residents like him who inspire a sense of community in us all.

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Mike Rego

Mike Rego has worked at East Bay Newspapers since 2001, helping the company launch The Westport Shorelines. He soon after became a Sports Editor, spending the next 10-plus years in that role before taking over as editor of The East Providence Post in February of 2012. To contact Mike about The Post or to submit information, suggest story ideas or photo opportunities, etc. in East Providence, email mrego@eastbaymediagroup.com.