Michelle Panoke, agency and administrative supervisor for the Kaua‘i branch of the Hawai‘i Food Bank, had two duties Thursday during the meeting of the Rotary Club of Hanalei Bay. Her first task was to accept a $10,000 gift from the
Michelle Panoke, agency and administrative supervisor for the Kaua‘i branch of the Hawai‘i Food Bank, had two duties Thursday during the meeting of the Rotary Club of Hanalei Bay.
Her first task was to accept a $10,000 gift from the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation. The gift was made possible because of a Friends project conducted by the Rotary Club of Hanalei Bay.
The club was rewarded with the check for a charity of its choice for members’ efforts installing rescue tubes along the coastline of Hanalei Bay in late January.
The check was presented by Branch Lotspeich, the club’s community services chair.
Panoke’s second task was to award three gold stars, representing three lives saved, through the use of the rescue tubes.
“As of this week, there have been 42 known uses of rescue tubes on Kaua‘i, resulting in an estimated 18 lives saved,” Lotspeich said in an email.
George Corrigan, a Rotarian with the Hanalei club, said the recent The Garden Island article about the visitors being saved at ‘Anini Beach on Feb. 6, did not mention the role played by the rescue tube installed there.
The husband of a 50-year-old female snorkeler from Virginia was getting sucked out of the channel, Dr. David Moore, a Kaua‘i Lifeguard Association supporter from Kilauea, said in an email to Dr. Monty Downs, president of the Kaua‘i Lifeguard Association.
The accounting of the role the rescue tube played in the Feb. 6 incident was reported in the Feb. 9 newsletter of the Rotary Club of Hanalei Bay.
“The husband on the beach told bystanders to call 911 as he grabbed fins and your rescue tube and went out, reaching his wife in the channel,” Moore said in his email to Downs. “They hung on, and a third person was out there snorkeling who was in trouble, and he hung on, too.”
The 911 dispatcher notified the county’s fire helicopter to stand by in the event they found the victims already out to sea.
“Three other people got sucked out trying to walk out to help the original victim,” Moore said. “Now six people are in the channel. A stand-up paddler went out, and the six people hung onto his big board, but the paddler could not make any headway to shore.”
Moore said the lifeguard jet ski from Hanalei arrived before the people were sucked out past the surf line, coinciding with firemen from the beach paddling out to the group.
Everyone was brought back to shore, and the woman was transported to Wilcox Memorial Hospital to be checked out. The rescue tube was credited with probably saving three victims from drowning.
“There are many more uses we never hear about, since the tubes are used and hung back up on the poles with no emergency personnel involved,” Corrigan said.
