Kayaker Rescues Mother And Child From Drowning In Ohio's Cuyahoga River

An Ohio professor’s kayaking trip turned into a rescue mission when he heard people yelling about a mother and daughter struggling in the Cuyahoga River.

The mother and daughter were with another individual at Franklin Mills Riveredge Park in downtown Kent on Saturday when the child, aged between 3 and 5, slipped into the water. The mother jumped in after the girl fell in.

"If she hadn’t done that, her child likely would have been submerged, and we would not have found her in time," Capt. David Moore with the Kent Fire Department told the Akron Beacon Journal.

Moore said the mother and girl were caught in a strong current and were "washed out" at the tip of an island that is located just downstream from the dam. They were in a dangerous area, where swimmers can be stuck and pulled under because of the debris from the island. Onlookers, meanwhile, could see the mother and daughter struggling in the water and yelled at Kent State biology professor, Darren Bade, who was kayaking there to help them.

“I was kayaking here, and I was hiking back up the river when somebody was yelling that there (were) some people in the river,” Bade told KentWired.

Bade went back in with his kayak to rescue the mother and daughter.

“I quickly got back in (the water) … and assisted them to get kind of out of the water and on the island until the fire department could come over and get them from there,” he added.

He said he couldn’t tell if the child “was breathing or not” by the time he got to them. She “didn’t look like she was doing real well couldn’t tell,” he told the outlet.

“Kent police officers arrived within minutes and two officers made it to the island to assist the kayaker with the victims. We commend both the kayaker and these officers for their heroic efforts,” the City of Kent Fire Department said in a press release.

Both the mother and daughter were taken to the hospital following the rescue.

Moore said the child would be released from the hospital the day after the incident and called it a “great end to this story.”

“It could have been a lot worse,” Moore said, according to Akron Beacon Journal.

"This gives us a good opportunity to remind people to be cautious around the river," Moore went on to say. "A lot of times it's uneven shoreline, slippery conditions with algae on rocks and all kinds of different trip hazards."