On Sunday May 24th, Chestermere resident Joe Davies was out for a leisurely kayaking trip on the lake when he capsized and quickly realized that his prosthetic leg had not resurfaced with him.
“I lost my leg 12 years ago. An impaired driver turned a ride on my motorcycle into a ride in a STARS helicopter. The Air Rescue Society saved my life that day and so did the people at the Foothills Hospital. I haven’t forgotten those folks or ever will. So, I’m used to having heroes in my life and very grateful for all the help I’ve had from people just like the ones who showed up to search for my prosthesis on Monday. My wife Billi loves to jump in and make everything OK when these things happen to me too! It’s been quite an adventure for her mopping up after my shenanigans! She holds the number one spot on my list of personal heroes. That list is getting pretty long! God bless my scuba divers!”
Davies had just taken up kayaking and said that his trip out onto the lake on that Sunday was going pretty well, “I paddled for a couple of hours without incident but fully expected to get wet at some point. When I was a teenager I was a certified lifeguard and swam competitively. So flipping a kayak over shouldn’t have been a problem. I was trying some different maneuvering, got a little cocky and ended up in the water. I took off my runner from my good leg and then removed the prosthesis so that I could swim better. I threw everything into the boat which was 2/3 full of water. I was headed for shore with my boat and my paddle when the boat swamped from a small wave and the front end started to sink. So I flipped the kayak upside down to trap air under it so I wouldn’t lose my new kayak and that’s when the prosthetic headed for the bottom. Once I realized what had happened, I didn’t want to leave the spot because I wanted to dive down and look for it once a boat showed up. A young girl from Hyperactive Watersports paddled out to me on a paddle board and John Kittler who owns Hyperactive picked me up with his boat. By the time he picked me up I had drifted with the wind and was nowhere near the spot I had dropped the prosthetic. John thought that with all the traffic on the lake and the wind causing the waves, that visibility would be zero in the water and I was losing strength fast by this time due to the water temperature and struggling with the kayak, so he hauled me in to the marina and we abandoned my lost lower extremity for the day. Some local folks showed up to have a go at finding the prosthetic with masks and flippers but John was right about visibility and the effort proved fruitless. Billi had posted a call to arms on the “I Love Chestermere” website and the calls started to come in from my heroes! Everyone wanted to help! John called the Chestermere Fire Department and they were going to put a new rescue boat into the water on Monday morning but the delivery of the boat was compromised by unforeseen circumstances. Chestermere scuba diver Scott Taylor saw Billi’s post and he rounded up some help from Sabrina and Matt Wyse of Calgary. Our Scuba Team showed up around 6 PM Monday evening and by 7, I was reunited with my dearest material possession. Hugs and smiles were shared all around and a bit of a celebration was in order!”
Sabrina and Matt Wyse, are Dive Masters at The Dive Shop in Calgary and say that they have been called upon before to find lost items in bodies of water… mostly wallets, phones, keys… but never a prosthetic leg. “When we heard of what had happened and were asked if we could help, of course we wanted to be there”, said Sabrina. Sabrina said that once in the water, it took about 20-30 minutes as visibility was only about 2 feet and at sometimes only about zero. “We laid out our baseline and knew our area so the three of us jumped in and started looking and I was the lucky one to find it”. Sabrina went on to say, “The feeling of being able to give that back to him is indescribable. It’s your leg. It’s almost like he’d lost it all over again. The smile on his face was great. He immediately just popped it back on and was like “yes”!”
A very grateful Joe explained, “This experience is one more chapter of my life that has brought me to realize just how important community support is. We all need help once in a while and as the clock ticked I was in dire need of that support. Within 24 hours of losing my prosthetic, it wasn’t funny anymore and I was once again overcome with my disability and started to feel the way I did 12 years ago when I first lost my leg. Monday evening came and the divers went into the water hell bent to turn things around for me. It got to the point where we wanted to see them succeed in their search, as much for their sake, as for mine. There were tears in most eyes when I stepped back into the socket and dropped the crutches.
Billi and I have lived in Chestermere a little over 4 years now and every day we feel more at home. We want to thank the whole community, but some big thank-you’s are in order for our incredible diver’s (Scott Taylor, Sabrina and Matt Wyse), Hyperactive Watersports (John Kittler and Tessa Warren), Judy Basaraba and Doug Bonnett who showed up Sunday afternoon and had a go at finding my prosthetic without the aid of scuba tanks. Our friend Jonathan Powell who wanted to jump into the lake and start searching with no gear whatsoever, and Audrey Gordon and Ray Thouret from Calgary who provided a lot of support to my wife and I on Sunday afternoon. These folks have all acquired high ranking positions on my list of personal heroes. That list is getting quite long but as I mentioned earlier, the number one spot has for a long time been filled by my wife Billi. She dressed my open wounds 3 times a day for 5 months after my accident. She raised my incredible children, she’s the one who rallied the troops that saved my butt on this one, and she’s the love of my life! I don’t know what I’d do without her!”
Chestermere has always had the reputation of being a very caring and compassionate community, but this story shows that the feeling of community stretches well past our city limits.
