Rosa Kouri, a mother, and a former lifeguard who previously resided in Saskatoon were at Thetis Lake, near Victoria, B.C., with her family when she heard a man crying for help in the water.
He was about six meters from the shore, struggling to keep his wife and son afloat.
“I had my four-month-old daughter and I checked to make sure she was safe with my mother and then I immediately bolted down the hill and ran down to the water,” Kouri told CBC’s Afternoon Edition.
About 20 years ago, Kouri had completed lifeguard training, but it didn’t teach her how to rescue a group. However, it taught her that it’s much easier to rescue someone above water than someone who has slipped beneath surface. At the time, she “didn’t even think,” she just dove in.
“I think I just grabbed all the limbs I could, and I tried to remember my lifeguard training — which was a long time ago when I was a teenager — and just tried to tow them in,” she recalled.
As she was dragging the family closer to shore, onlookers began to make a human chain, and reached out to her, grabbing her arm and pulling her as well as the family closer.
Kouri said the family was in shock and gasped for air when they were safe on shore, but they seemed to be okay. The man then thanked her in between gasps of breaths.
Watch the video below
