Boulder Man Donates His Boat To Help Rural Sheriff's Department In Need
GRANBY, Colo. (CBS4) - The Grand County Sheriff's Department will soon be patrolling popular county lakes in a new boat thanks to a generous donation by an 87-year-old Boulder man.
Grand County sheriff's spokesman Dan Mayer says the donation came as a complete shock.
"Mr. Paquette called us up and said he wanted to help get us a boat so we could respond more efficiently to events in our lakes. So we traveled down there to his home and we were pleasantly surprised to find a boat in such a great condition," Mayer said.
Richard "Dick" Paquette said he simply wanted to do something to help out after seeing past media coverage of the July 3 drowning death of Christopher Mullinex in Lake Granby. It took crews several days to recover his body, and his family started a movement to get a new water rescue team in Grand County.
The sheriff on Monday will officially announce the donation of the new boat during a community meeting about the issue being held in Grand Lake at 7 p.m.
Mayer says county officials are also talking about possibly purchasing an underwater robot that could be used to search lakes during recovery operations in the place of dive teams that cost a great deal to keep trained and geared up.
The cost of an underwater robot could range from $10,000 to $100,000, according to the sheriff's office.
The nearest dive team to Grand County is in Summit County and that team was unable to come to the recovery operation due to other emergency calls closer to Summit County during the Fourth of July weekend.