Posted: Saturday, March 3, 2007 12:00 am
Kantola saved two from possible drowning
By Gwyneth Gibby
Gazette-Times reporter
Greg Kantola is the kind of guy who saves your life, shakes your hand, walks away and doesn't tell anyone about it. Kantola is a Corvallis police officer, and that's exactly what he did July 25. He couldn't keep his actions secret forever, though. And Friday, Police Chief Gary Boldizsar presented Kantola with a Distinguished Service Award and a Challenge coin while other officers and their families looked on.
The award is given to officers who perform a live-saving act while risking their own lives. The coin is for officers and citizens who go above and beyond the call of duty.
According to the certificate accompanying the award, on July 25, Kantola and his family were at the Polk Marina Park in Independence on the banks of the Willamette River. A man went into the water to rescue his dog, who he thought was in trouble in the swift current. But the man himself began to falter about 30 yards out and called out for help. His teenage daughter went into the water to try to assist him.
A woman standing on the shore started to yell, "Somebody help!"
The man panicked, crying "I'm not going to make it!"
Kantola's wife, Kristi, was at the park but up on a hill with the couple's two girls.
"(Greg) was there with the boys," she said. "He dropped his cell phone and his keys and told the boys to stay there."
Then he ran for the water and dove in.
"He told us to stay there, but we didn't," said 11-year-old son Cody. He and his little brother, Caleb, dashed after their dad to the water's edge to watch.
"He jumped in the water and was trying to help (the man) swim to shore," Cody said.
Kantola swam out to the man, telling him to stay calm. The man was bobbing below the surface as Kantola reached him, but Kantola was able to get hold of the man's clothing and help him stay afloat. Then he battled the current and swam to shore with both the man and his daughter in tow.
The dog paddled to safety on his own.
They were lucky - Kantola is at home in the water. He's a triathlete and the previous year he swam from Alcatraz to the mainland.
The man who he saved thanked Kantola and drove off with his family. No one got his name.
Back on duty, Kantola didn't tell anyone.
"In my mind it's just what anybody would do," he said Friday.
But Kristi was proud of him. At a camp-out about a month later, she told the story to Emmy Goodwin, the wife of her husband's superior officer, Sgt. Joel Goodwin. And Emmy told her husband, who got all the details from police and fire department staff in Independence.
Boldizsar said the Distinguished Service Award had been given out five times, and one of the other four went to Kantola in 2000, when he helped pull a man out of a burning van. He's that kind of guy.