Rosa Kouri was enjoying a day with her family at Thetis Lake last Thursday when she heard cries for help coming from the water.
That’s when she noticed a mother, father, and their young boy approximately 20 feet from the shore, bobbing up and down in the water and gasping for air.
Trained as a lifeguard in her teens, Kouri’s instincts took over.
“I jumped in and I swam out to them,” she recalled. “I grabbed all the limbs that I could and started towing them in.”
The task of rescuing three people in the water all at once wasn’t exactly easy, Kouri says.
“It was pretty messy. One of the things you don’t expect is three people at once,” she recalled. “So, there was a fair of in and out of the water and getting pushed down, but it was fine, I was able to come back up and pull them in.”
Eventually, Kouri and the family of three reached an area in the water that required her to pull them up over a ledge.
“I couldn’t quite get them over and I could hear voices on the shore that were shouting encouragement and so that was really helpful.”
While the encouragement was nice to hear, Kouri needed more than just words at the moment.
“I looked up at [the people on the shore] and I said ‘I need help, I need help,'” she recalled.
Kouri says the people onshore moved swiftly to form a human chain by linking themselves to a nearby railing and reaching her and the family in the water.
“I was able with my left arm hold onto the father and with my right arm, hold onto the people onshore,” she said.
Tragedy averted.
Kouri says she has since reached out to the Town of View Royal asking for more signage in multiple languages as well as a lifeguard to be stationed at the lake.
A family of three nearly drowned at Thetis Lake last Thursday, until Rosa Kouri, above, quickly sprung into action and helped rescue them. (CHEK News)
Kevin Charach
