Cape Coral firefighters revived an elderly man who fell into a canal in the southwest Cape Wednesday afternoon after he apparently suffered cardiac arrest and tumbled into the water.
Fire Dispatch received a 911 call at 1:14 p.m. reporting that a man had fallen into a canal in the 5700 block of Flamingo Drive.
The caller and others were attempting to get him out of the canal but were unable to pull him out of the water.
Within a few minutes, a rescue team with the Cape Fire Department’s Truck 1 and Rescue 1 units arrived and found the victim and another man still in the water.
The other man was holding the victim against a ladder on a dock but he was unable to lift the unconscious man from the canal.
Cape Coral Engineer Eric Hawkins descended the ladder, lifted the victim onto his shoulders and began to carry him up the steps to the dock.
Hawkins then was assisted by other members of his rescue team who began providing life-saving, emergency treatment on the elderly victim.
The man was not breathing and had no pulse when he was pulled from the water.
The rescue team placed him on an auto-pulse machine, cleared his airway to assist with breathing and began pumping water from his lungs.
In less than five minutes, rescue workers were able to detect a pulse on the man.
The victim was stabilized and transported via EMS ambulance to the emergency room at Cape Coral Hospital.
Cape Firefighter Mike Harper rode with the victim in the EMS unit and continued administering CPR during the transport.
The victim’s condition and prognosis were not released.
The other members of the two Cape Fire units who responded to the scene and assisted in the rescue effort included Battalion Chief John Scimeca, Lt. Jerry Doviak, Engineer Don Clark, and Firefighter Chris Fonock.

Source: City of Cape Coral