28 AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: JUNE 2017 Forget the K-9s, we got a drug sniffing lizard! Attention all personnel: The drug-sniffing beard- ed dragon working with the Avondale Police Department in Arizona was “fake news.” The story went viral after the agency did an April 13 Facebook post that featured photos of Chief Nannenga swearing in Iroh the lizard. Sadly, the swearing in ceremony was an April Fool’s joke that was about two weeks late. Avondale police told ABC15 they were just trying to get more traffic on Facebook. I t’s a feeling the lucky few know all too well. It’s that peaceful calm that washes over you after you realize you just saved another human being’s life. It doesn’t get much better than that. But sometimes it does. The two Detroit Police officers that risked their own lives to save a woman from the Detroit River didn’t know they were saving two lives until they realized the lady they saved was preg- nant. It was only after the wom- an was pulled out of the water they knew they saved a second life too. The call went out close to midnight – a woman had fallen into the water at Riverside Park. Officers Brian Gadwell and Stephen Rauser were the first on scene. “There was a guy laying on the ground. It was a five feet drop. He was holding a branch. There was a lady in the water struggling trying to hang on to the branch,” Gadwell said. It was really cold and hypothermia was setting in. Her grip was fading as the cold sapped her strength. It was now or never. “We had to do some- thing – we couldn’t wait no more, she was barely hanging on. So at that point we jumped in. I wrapped my legs around her and I was able to grab rebar or a rod that was sticking out of the water. I held on to her,” Gadwell said. Now the clock was tick- ing. The water was 48 degrees and the current was strong. “I started losing feeling in my hands and my hands stopped working. I had to wrap my arm around the bar and try to lock it in,” Gadwell continued. “I thought I was going to die, to be honest with you. I was yelling at them ‘you guys better do something – I can’t hang on.’” His partner, Steven Raus- er, sensing that Gadwell might be in trouble, took the plunge. “She was around my neck, hanging on to my back, pulling us both in,” Rauser said. Sometimes you get lucky and get some help with these things. Ryan Gazdecki, senior captain of the J.W. Wescott (a barge that delivers mail to freighters in the Detroit River) was about to punch out when he saw the com- motion. So he turned the barge toward the trouble and the captain and and a coworker made their way over. They tossed a life line right to the rescuers and pulled her onto the boat. That was the first time they realized the woman was pregnant. “Once she started coming out, I yelled to everyone ‘she’s pregnant, we got to be real careful with her,’” Gazdecki said. The woman and the two officers were all treated for hypothermia. The best news is that everyone’s OK. At the hos- pital, doctors per- formed an emer- gency C-section and the baby is fine. “She told me she loved me and I said ‘I love you too or else I wouldn’t be in here with you’,” Gadwell told reporters from WJBK News. Two heroes make the save The rescue was no cake walk but the officers never gave up Detroit Officers Brian Gadwell, left, and Stephen Rauser on the right. Are you sick of being the last one to get the issue of APB everyone shares? We’re still cheaper than a large pizza for a year’s subscription! And we need the support. www.apbweb.com