B.C Coroners Service has identified a 63-year-old man who died Wednesday in a boating accident while fishing with his brother a day earlier on Westwood Lake.
Michael Jeffrey Little, of Nanaimo, died in hospital on Wednesday.
“Emergency personnel attended the scene and airlifted Mr. Little to Victoria General Hospital, however, resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful,” said the B.C. Coroners Service today.
The brothers were not wearing life-jackets. The safety equipment was on board but were still in their packages, according to Nanaimo RCMP Const Gary O’Brien, Thursday.
Witnesses said the man was under water for about four minutes.
Chris Allison, 24, said he was taking in the view when he noticed the men in the water.
“You could hear one of the guys yelling, ‘Hey are you all right? Try and flip over on your back,’ ” he said. “I started running toward the shore while my buddy Ryan called 911. You could hear the guy who was still above water screaming: ‘No, no, no.’ ”
Allison jumped in the lake and tried to keep the 64-year-old, who was conscious and responsive, calm until rescuers arrived.
A man in a paddle boat also responded to the fishermen, helping to keep them above water until emergency crews arrived.
“We were out there for about 15 minutes. It was pretty bad,” Allison said.
The 63-year-old man “was unresponsive and just seeing him in the water for that long . . . I thought he was dead,” he said.
With a file from Nanaimo Daily News
