Two U.S. Virgin Islands Local Men Made A Daring Rescue Of A Wheelchair-Bound Woman From The Water After She And Her Wheelchair Plunged Into The Water From The Dock
by Heather Cassell
A cruise vacation to the Caribbean got a little too exciting for a woman in a wheelchair last Monday when she inadvertently fell off the dock into the water between the ship and the platform.
Two men, Randolph Donovan and Kuntry Hamilton, are being praised as heroes for rescuing the young woman who hasn’t been named.
The incident and rescue was captured on video and posted on the What’s Going on St. Thomas? Facebook group page.
The woman in the wheelchair was being escorted by a family member off of the Carnival Fascination cruise ship when it docked in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands on August 12.
The girl suddenly fell into the water off of the West Indian Company Dock, Newsweek cited the Virgin Islands Consortium.
The local men working for the local Department of Tourism greeting cruise ship passengers immediately jumped into action.
Donovan, 34, a stilt dancer, said he heard a commotion on the dock and went to check it out. Seeing the girl and her wheelchair in the water he sprang into action.
“I couldn’t think, I just had to move real quick,” he later posted on Facebook describing the moment. “I told myself I had to save her.”
In an August 17 interview with NBC News, he said, “I jumped straight in the water from the top level of the dock,” noting the depth of the water and that the wheelchair was going under attempting to take the girl with it.
He immediately “removed her from the wheelchair because I didn’t want the wheelchair to sink with her in it.”
At the same time, a lifesaver with a rope was thrown to the girl who clung to it and he called out to his friend, Hamilton, a DJ, “I cannot hold on no more,” he wrote.
Donovan, who was watching from the platform jumped into the water as he saw his friend struggling to rescue the girl and survive himself. “I can’t lose my friend, so I jumped in,” he told NBC News.
In the water, he fastened a rope around both of them.
Cruise ship staff members, which included ship security officers, ship medical staff, and port workers pulled the girl to safety.
Cheers erupted from the crowd that gathered watching the situation. Medical professionals performed a medical check of the woman on the deck.
The men were also pulled up from the water.
A complimentary wheelchair was immediately provided to the girl for her use throughout the rest of her trip.
Donavan praised his friend for helping him rescue the girl.
“Now she [has] another day to talk about this day.”
The woman didn’t sustain any injuries, according to an unidentified spokesperson in a statement from Carnival Cruise Line, reported Newsweek.
The spokesperson praised the two men for their “heroic efforts in assisting this guest” in the statement.
Hamilton thanked people for their words of praise in a post on Facebook.
“The love that is coming is tremendous and I want to say thank you to each and everyone. [In a] situation like this, all you can do is act and hope for the best,” he wrote thanking his friend for saving the girl and that they were both safe too.
The men’s actions were recognized by the U.S. Virgin Islands Senator Kurt Vialet in the Senate.
Book your next Cruise vacation with Girls That Roam Travel. Contact Heather Cassell at Girls That Roam Travel at 415-517-7239 or at .
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