911 Dispatcher Sends Own Mom to Rescue Kayaker

A 911 dispatcher in Washington state who received a call about a stranded kayaker knew somebody who could get there faster than a patrol boat—her mom. Dispatcher Raedyn Grasseth contacted her mother, an experienced kayaker who lived near the area where the 45-year-old woman was stranded, and she came to the rescue with other family members in a kayak and a skiff within minutes, the Daily News reports.

Grasseth says the woman—who was not an experienced boater and didn't know the area's waterways—became stranded when her kayak sank in the Columbia River as it hit difficult currents near a jetty. She "hung onto the jetty until she could climb up and get on to as much of the log piling as she could and waited," the dispatcher says. "She's lucky she's alive, plain and simple." (More kayaking stories.)