Martin County deputies help rescue man in wheelchair from water

MARTIN COUNTY, Fla. —

Deputies in Martin County helped rescue a nonverbal man in a wheelchair after a ramp collapse sent him into the water Sunday morning.

Deputies have not released the man's name but said he's in his 30s and confined to a wheelchair, unable to move his legs or hands.

The man's father was wheeling him onto the boat when the ramp they were using collapsed.

Body camera footage from a Martin County Sheriff's deputy shows the man strapped to a wheelchair, surrounded by good Samaritans holding him above the water when Deputy Mark Appler arrived.

"A little awe and shock at first, where you realize this is for real," Appler said. "We need to act."

Appler said the first thing he did was assess the situation and try to come up with a way to get the man to safety.

"We learned that the victim weighed about 130 pounds, and the wheelchair itself weighed 230 pounds," Appler said. "And being that everything was wet, it was making everything a little heavier."

The initial plan was to attach a rope to the chair and pull it and the man out of the water together.

But that proved impossible.

"The top harness that he had was still holding him in and kind of started to choke him a little bit, so we lowered him back to the water level to reassess our next approach," Appler said.

That's about the time Deputy Sam Oliver arrived on the scene.

"It was pretty instinctual. Once I got there, I saw the urgency and just jumped in (the water)," Oliver said. "With him not being able to speak to us, to articulate how he was feeling, we knew urgency was the best route there."

The next plan involved unharnessing the man from the chair and using a life vest to keep him buoyant.

Martin County Fire Rescue provided a backboard, and Deputy Oliver swam the man to shore, where they lifted him to dry land and safety.

Despite a few scrapes and bruises, the man was mostly uninjured.

The deputies had a story to tell and a lesson learned.

"Always be prepared because you never know what's going to happen," Appler said.

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