Two employees at Lopez Lake helped save a man and his children over the weekend.
Rick Mendoza and Tanner Maddux work at the Lopez Lake Marina. Last Saturday, after renting an aluminum boat to a man with his two young children, Mendoza said the man had trouble with the controls.
“He's holding the throttle and he's not letting go and so [the boat is] spinning," Mendoza said. "Then, after, water starts pouring over.”
“I thought, this could go in two directions," Maddux said. "Either he can pull the kill switch now, or if they continue to go out there, start spinning, the boat starts to lean. Unfortunately, that's the route that it took.”
Mendoza said the father, who was wearing an emergency shut-off cord, fell into the water, killing the engine but capsizing the boat. He said before he knew it, he and Maddux were in the water trying to help the family. When Mendoza reached the boat, he heard one thing.
“'Where's my son? Where's my son?' I'm assuming that the boat was flipped over and its weight [pulling] downwards," Mendoza said. "So I swim underneath the boat, I find him underneath the boat, trapped.”
The upturned boat created an air pocket under the hull, where Mendoza said he found the young boy. After talking to the boy to keep him calm, Mendoza grabbed the hull from below and counted down.
“On the count of three, I got the boat, we went underneath and I pushed ourselves out," Mendoza said.
Maddux said once they saw everyone was accounted for and safe, a nearby boat came to pick up the family while he and Mendoza pulled the boat back to the dock.
“It's not too easy to pull those boats by hand back into the shoreline, but you gotta do what you got to do," Maddux said.
Maddux said as long as visitors are aware of the risk, they shouldn’t be afraid to go in the water.
“It's no different than riding a bike," he said. "You fall off of it when you're young and mistakes happen. You learn from it and you just grow as a person and just try to get better at what you're trying to do.”
For Mendoza, this rescue was more than just an eventful day at work.
“I want to get into the fire academy," Mendoza said. "So I'm hoping. Helping feels really good to me, to be there, to help someone.”
Community reporter Makayla Richardson found out about this story after witnesses reached out. If you have information you'd like Makayla to know about or look into, call (805) 597-8407, email makayla.richardson@ksby.com, or reach out via social media @makayla.richardson.news.
