A woman, her fiancé and her friends were heading back from dinner on a boat last weekend when they ended up helping save the lives of a father and daughter whose personal watercraft had sunk near Tampa, Florida.
The Tampa news channel WFTS hailed Samantha Conover and her companions as heroes after they helped a local sheriff’s office deputy search for the missing man and girl and pull them out of the water, but the group has resisted the label.
“We’re not heroes,” Conover told the station in a midweek report. “We were at the right place at the right time. We would have done it for anyone with no hesitation.”
Nonetheless, the local sheriff has said the involvement of Conover, her fiancé and their friends almost certainly prevented two deaths on the water.
Conover and her companions had dinner on a pontoon the night of 15 April and had taken their boat back to a public ramp on shore about 8pm when they overheard a worrisome exchange. A local sheriff’s deputy was looking for a 13-year-old girl and her father who had been jet skiing and was wondering if anyone could assist. The father’s girlfriend, Carolyn Joyce, had gone to the deputy because neither her boyfriend, 31-year-old Christopher Snow, nor his daughter, Alexis Snow, had come home, and they weren’t answering phone calls.
The remarks sent a chill through Conover because she had seen the man and his daughter on the water earlier, and she feared something terrible had happened, according to WFTS. Conover, her fiancé and their friends told the deputy to get on board and that they could help.
Conover said she was initially ambivalent about getting involved.
“I didn’t know what to think,” she said in the interview with WFTS. “I was scared.”
But then, as they searched around the perimeter of the lake, the deputy and the group heard someone shout, “Help!”
“Oh my god,” someone on the boat said, according to video captured by the deputy’s body-worn camera. “We’re coming!”
When the boat approached the father and daughter, Alexis Snow said through sobs that their jetski had sunk in the lake. Conover, her companions and the deputy quickly worked together to pull Alexis and Christoper Snow out.
Neither was hurt, but they were getting extremely tired after treading water in their lifejackets for about an hour, they said. Hypothermia, not to mention drowning, were becoming increasing risks the longer they were in the water without being rescued.
“Happy ending,” Conover’s fiancé said after the girl and man were pulled out. The deputy, Kevin Reich, shook the hand of Conover’s fiancé and said: “Good job, man.”
After the Snows were returned to shore, the local sheriff, Chad Chronister, said the swift response by Reich and Conover’s group “played a crucial role in the successful rescue”.
“It is scary to imagine what could have happened had this father and daughter not been wearing their lifejackets,” Chronister added.
Christopher Snow added in a statement that his lifejacket wasn’t sized properly and said he hoped his ordeal served as a reminder for the public to avoid the same mistake. He said that he wanted to thank his rescuers for “noticing [that] something wasn’t right” and doing something about it.
Conover, meanwhile, told WFTS that watching Reich’s body-worn camera video makes her emotional.
“I never thought I would be in that situation,” she said. “And I’m glad that … we were able to help save them.”
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