Kayaker Who Saved Livermore Family Describes Harrowing River Rescue

By Bay City News Service — A kayaker who helped pull a Livermore family out of an SUV that crashed into the American River on Thursday described the harrowing rescue, saying that anyone else would have done the same.

Mark Divittorio of Coloma heard the crash as he was finishing up his run that afternoon and went 200 feet upstream to find an SUV on its side in the river with three young girls standing on top of it, he said Monday.

The car, driven by Christian Lemler of Livermore,  had careened off of U.S. Highway 50 near Kyburz, a town about 75 miles east of Sacramento, shortly before 3 p.m., striking a concrete mile marker, a tree and a boulder before landing in the river, California Highway Patrol Sgt. Mike Poore said.

Divittorio told a woman on the shore to call for help and quickly went to work, first taking the youngest of Lemler's three daughters, a 4-year-old, to shore with his kayak. He then asked for help from another man on the riverbank, and the two then transported the other two girls — twin teenagers — back to shore, he said.

However, when he looked into the front of the car, he realized saving the girls' parents was going to be much more complicated. Lemler's legs were stuck in the mangled wreckage, and the SUV was being pushed further over by the river's current. Lemler was hanging upside down, his seatbelt keeping his head above the water. His wife was trying to keep him conscious, talking to him.

"The husband and wife hung in there until rescuers showed up," Divittorio posted on Facebook. "They told each other that they love one another." 

Divittorio feared that if he pulled the woman from the car, the current would only push the car further over, and if he cut the seatbelt the man would become trapped with his head underwater.

"Manipulating a body out of it would have been almost impossible," Divittorio said.

Judging from photos Divittorio posted on his Facebook page, that is an understatement. The shots, accompanied by his account of the rescue, show the car with its roof crushed flat.

Minutes before the crash Divittorio had noticed a fire truck go by on the road, and he again called to shore, telling bystanders to call the fire department's dispatch center to tell them to send the fire truck back.

They did, and the truck returned within three minutes. It had the right equipment to pull back the vehicle, cut the seatbelt, free the man and his wife and bringing them safely ashore.

Lemler's injuries are described as "moderate to major," but he is expected to survive, according to the CHP.