Bystanders, Including 2 Off-Duty Firefighters, Rescue Person From Drowning At Lake Tahoe

STATELINE, Nev. (AP) -- A Nevada sheriff says a near-drowning victim at Lake Tahoe is alive thanks to the "extraordinary efforts" of two off-duty firefighters from California and a physician's assistant from Iowa who pitched in to help save his life.

Washoe County Sheriff Darin Balaam singled out the three "Good Samaritans" and other deputies Friday, a week after the emergency was reported on Tahoe's east shore.

The trio included Erin Dohlman, a recent graduate from the Des Moines University Physician Assistant Program, and Freddy Matias, an off-duty firefighter from CalFire's Napa Valley station.

Balaam says the other unnamed firefighter was administering CPR to a San Francisco Bay Area man who was submerged and unconscious before Dohlman and Matias joined in.

He says they happened to be the right people, "with the right skills, in the right place, at the right time."

Copyright 2019 The Associated Press.