FARGO – With his rescue harness attached to a rope spanning the Red River, Fargo firefighter Justin Werlinger struggled against the rushing waters to reach two men in a boat stuck sideways on the dam at Lemke Park.

Here shallow rocks and boulders that make up the dam just south of 32nd Avenue South turns the dark brown river into white-water rapids with powerful currents that could knock a man off his feet.

Werlinger could be seen from shore bobbing up and down as he lost and recovered his footing, all while being pulled by one of the boaters with a second rope attached to the firefighter’s harness.

“The guys we rescued actually did quite a bit out there to help us out,” Werlinger told reporters later on Tuesday, July 25.

He was the second firefighter to make the attempt. The first tried to wade out on his own while hauling harnesses and helmets for the boaters but was overwhelmed by fatigue and had to be dragged to shore by colleagues.

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Both boaters, Justin Kill and his father Ron, were eventually pulled to shore with a harness and rope around 11:45 a.m., an hour and a half after firefighters were dispatched. About 25 rescuers from fire departments in Fargo and Moorhead, Fargo police and F-M Ambulance were involved.

Battalion Chief Dane Carley, the top-ranking fire official on the scene, told reporters Tuesday’s “high-line rescue” was an unusual one because firefighters can usually pull off a rescue without getting in the water themselves. “Going in the water is always the last choice – there’s several steps we take before that if we can – but that was the only option here.”

The Kills had been using a small trolling motor to follow the fish Tuesday morning, according to Carley. By the time they noticed that the current had pulled them close to the rapids, they didn’t have enough time to start their main motor.

“The currents are surprisingly strong,” the battalion chief said. “It doesn’t look like it, but that’s what gets people in trouble in this river.”

“I looked back and I bet we were only 25 feet – but it was too late then,” Justin Kill said. “There was no way. Neither of those motors were going to get us from there. You gotta stay back from that. Yeah, we learned a lesson today.”

The boat eventually settled in the middle of the field of partially submerged rocks in front of the dam.

Carley said dam rescues are more common than he wished but the victims are usually stuck at the edge of the rock field so rescuers have an easier time reaching them by boat or from shore.

Because the boat had settled on a large boulder, firefighters at first thought they had a lot of time to plan the rescue. According to Carley, they considered using a jet boat with a very shallow draft to go over the rapids, but it seemed risky. They also considered attaching a rescue boat to rope spanning the river and pulling it to the Kills’ boat, but the forces involved might have strained the rope.

That left firefighters with the high-line rescue, which was made more urgent when they learned from Justin Kill that his father has a medical condition that could cause him to be very fatigued.

While using the harness and rope is also risky, Carley said firefighters have several safety backups, including wearing survival suits that can float, having a rope attached to the suit held by firefighters on shore, wearing a helmet to avoid head injury from falls and having a boat with additional rescuers downstream of the dam.

The suit, though, is designed to keep firefighters warm during cold-water rescues and the air temperature was in the mid-70s late Tuesday morning.

Werlinger said the “heat exhaustion” was actually the worst part of rescue. He said he probably wouldn’t have made it any farther than the first firefighter if the boaters’ harnesses and helmets hadn’t been pulled over separately and if he hadn’t been pulled himself.

After being pulled into the boat, he said, it was just a matter of helping the Kills don their harnesses and helmets.

The shore crew pulled the elder Kill to shore first, then his son, and both were able to walk on their own afterwards as they made calls to loved ones.

Werlinger said he himself was pulled the same way. “The guys on shore definitely did all work to get me back. I literally did nothing. The fatigue was significant.”

He appeared soaked after being helped out of the survival suit. As he laid on the grass to rest, emergency medical technicians checked his blood pressure to be sure.

The Kills’ boat remains on the rocks while they decide how to recover it.

Carley said the firefighters considered pulling it but thought that would do more harm than good at this point. He said they could call a salvage company or wait for a big rainstorm to raise the water level enough to dislodge the boat.

Check back to Inforum.com and WDAY.com for more on this developing story.