As Dick Gower sat in the TV room of his Indian River Estates home and, along with his wife, Ellen, explained in vivid detail how he fell into a nearby canal earlier this month and was rescued by a team of heroic friends and strangers, there was not a shred of doubt in either of their minds.
The life-saving script, they professed, was written by the hand of God.
“It had to be a miracle,” Gower said. “If it were a matter of one or two coincidences, I might’ve said, ‘I was just lucky.’ But there were too many coincidences that occurred in just the right sequence for it to be happenstance.
“For all of those people to arrive at the scene exactly when they did and in the order that they did …,” he added, pausing briefly to choose his words before continuing. “It was as if The Big Guy Upstairs had choreographed the whole thing, sending His angels to save me.”
Gower, a 14-year island resident who moved to the total-care, resort-style retirement community in February 2013, couldn’t help but get emotional as he spoke of the caring and courageous cast that responded the way all of us should when someone is in such trouble.
A Rhode Island native, former U.S. Navy officer and retired businessman who played golf at Hawk’s Nest until he was physically unable, Gower is 80 years old.
And because a group of people, previously unknown to each other, dutifully and selflessly answered the call of humanity, he now has a real chance to turn 81 in July.
“They got involved when there was nothing in it for them to do so,” his wife said. “Their efforts helped save a very precious life, and both Dick and I will always be grateful.”
The Gowers are so grateful, in fact, that they plan to invite all who participated in the rescue to a party at their home and thank them again.
That’s why they want to share their story: They haven’t yet identified everyone who was there.
“This story isn’t about me,” Gower said. “It’s about those wonderful people who jumped in and helped a stranger in trouble. We’ve found six of them and met with five of them, but, from what we’ve heard, there were about 15 people who stopped and either helped or offered to help.
“For them to do what they did, I feel so honored, so blessed,” he added. “I have an opportunity to do something that is very rare – thank the people who saved my life. I want to meet every one of them.”
Thus far, the Gowers have met, thanked and taken photographs with all of the first responders.
There was Tori Cotton, the 20-year-old flight student who, out of the corner of her eye, saw Gower stumble over the edge of the embankment, stopped her car in the middle of the intersection, and frantically called 911 as she ran toward the canal.
There were the Gowers’ friends, Sandy and Jacque Cypressi, who just happened to be in the second car to stop and quickly took control of the situation – Jacque flagging down other passersby in search of a rope, Sandy organizing the actual rescue.
There was Cesar Medina, the Mexican immigrant who grabbed a rope from his work van, went down into the canal and tied the rope around the unconscious victim’s torso, allowing Sandy Cypressi and others to pull him up the steep, 15-foot embankment.
Then, finally, there was Curtis Carpenter, the 31-year-old Indian River Medical Center X-ray technologist, who immediately performed CPR and revived the unresponsive Gower minutes before an Indian River County Fire Rescue emergency medical crew arrived and rushed him to Lawnwood Regional Medical Center’s Trauma Unit in Fort Pierce.
“When we found him, he was floating face down in the water,” Carpenter said. “And when we pulled him out, he was very blue, wasn’t breathing and had no pulse. But I knew I had to give it a shot.
“I’ve been certified in CPR for 10 years and I had performed it before in the hospital, but never in a situation like this,” he added. “So to be able to bring someone back … It was the most unbelievable thing that’s ever happened to me.
“That’s certainly a day I’ll never forget.”
It was at roughly 3:30 p.m. on May 4, while out for what he called his “daily, two-mile, pick-up-the-trash walk,” that Gower left the community’s campus through the back gate on 74th Avenue and headed toward the roadside canal along 26th Street, where he noticed some litter.
“We live in such a beautiful place, and I hate seeing it littered with beer cans, wine bottles, fast-food wrappers and other trash,” he said. “So I grab a trash bag and my trusty cane, and I pick up the trash while on my walks.
“I do the same thing when we go back up to Massachussetts for the summer.”
This time, however, when he set the base of his cane into the grass near the edge of the embankment, it sank deeper than he expected. He lost his balance and fell head-first over the edge.
Though he has no memory of what happened next, he and his wife – she became worried when he hadn’t returned by 5:30 p.m. and drove around the campus, hoping to find him – have since learned of the series of coincidences that brought his rescue team to the scene at exactly the right time.
Had Cotton not put off going to the gas station for a fill-up, as she had planned, she would not have arrived at the intersection seconds before the fall, which she saw as she checked for traffic before turning onto 26th Street.
“I was at the stop sign when I saw him put his cane down and start wobbling,” the 20-year-old Texan said. “My first thought was, ‘Oh, please, don’t fall in.’ When he went over the edge, I put the car in park, turned on my flashers and got out to wave down another car for help, then called 911.
“It’s a good thing I didn’t stop for gas,” she added. “My timing was perfect.”
Same goes for the Cypressis being in the second car to arrive. Jacque is a no-nonsense type who quickly assessed the situation, realized no rescue could be made without a rope and kept stopping cars until she found one.
It was her husband, Sandy, who, acknowledging his own physical limitations, told Medina he needed to go into the canal.
“I look strong, and I am, but I’m 78 with poor balance,” Sandy Cypressi said. “I won’t be able to do what needs to be done down there.”
Medina, who speaks in broken English, saw the traffic backup as he approached the intersection and was preparing to make a U-turn when Jacque Cypressi ran toward his van and asked if he had a rope.
The 34-year-old construction worker stopped, pulled a rope from the van and accepted the task of going into the canal, tying the rope around his waist and allowing the others to lower him down the embankment.
“I wasn’t scared, but I see the guy in the water and I don’t know,” Medina said. “I thought maybe we were too late, that he was already dead.”
Gower probably would’ve died if someone trained in CPR wasn’t at the scene.
As fate would have it, Carpenter, who had been putting off helping a friend move a washer and dryer, decided to take care of the task on that particular day.
By doing so, he found himself in the right place at the right time to help save a life, even if he did fracture three of Gower’s ribs in the process.
“I felt them cracking while giving compressions, which isn’t uncommon,” Carpenter said, adding that he hopes this incident prompts others to learn CPR. “When we met, I told him I was sorry, but he said he was glad I fractured his ribs because he wouldn’t be alive if I didn’t.”
By the way, the Gowers found Carpenter, who grew up in Vero Beach, through Facebook, where one of their campus nurses had seen his posts about his life-saving attempt. They telephoned him from the hospital the morning following the fall.
“The dude just called me to say thank you,” Carpenter posted after the call. “I’m literally in tears.”
There were plenty of tears to go around – tears of joy and thanks and praise – as the Gowers expressed heartfelt gratitude to everyone who turned tragedy into triumph and made a miracle.
In the meantime, Gower continues to recover from his injuries, which, in addition to the fractured ribs, included multiple cuts and bruises on his face, arms and hands, as well as a torn deltoid muscle in his right shoulder.
He goes to physical therapy and has begun walking again, though much shorter distances and not off campus.
And he no longer picks up litter.
“Ellen has informed me that when people reach the ripe old age of 80, they are no longer allowed to pick up trash on their walks,” Gower said.
(NOTE: The Gowers would like to talk to everyone who was at the scene, even those who did not participate in the actual rescue but stopped to offer help. You may contact them at EGower4549@ aol.com).