“I now have a new hero in my life, and his name is Jeff Sell of the Leavenworth Bass Club.”
That’s what Alan Daniels, a member of the Backlashers of Kansas City bass club, said after he and Sell helped save a woman’s life in the 2016 Missouri B.A.S.S. Nation Championship on the Lake of the Ozarks, Oct. 15-16.
It was the second day of the championship, this past Sunday. Daniels describes it as a beautiful day, the temperature was in the mid-80s, and the lake and shores were full of people out enjoying the weather.
Daniels and Sell were fishing a long stretch of docks just off the main channel. Daniels had just put his second keeper in the livewell, and then he heard someone crying.
“I was looking around to find out where this was coming from,” Daniels said, “and I noticed a lady, possibly in her mid-60s, in the water. She was fully clothed and seemed to be struggling.”
Daniels alerted Sell, and the two dived into action.
“We threw the rods on the deck, yelled at a gentleman working his boat that his neighbor is hurt and sped her way with the trolling motor on high, as she was only three docks away.”
The woman was hurt, and blood was running down her arm.
“I got the boat as close to the dock as possible, and Jeff jumped off to help get her ladder put in the water,” Daniels said.
The wind had picked up now, and it was gusting more than 20 mph. Daniels struggled against the wind, fighting to keep the boat from hitting the woman.
“As Jeff lowered her ladder into the water, she was really starting to struggle and told us that she had been in the water for more than 30 minutes trying to call for help. The water temps at that time were only 71 degrees, and we knew we had to get her out of the water quickly.”
Sell went down the first couple of steps to where his shoes were in the water. The woman let go of the dock to swim the 5 feet to the ladder, but she could barely hold on any more.
She began to sink.
“Jeff didn’t hesitate,” Daniels said. “He dove in after her and pulled her back up and got her back to the ladder. He stayed with her until she got back on the dock.”
At this point, the neighbor came over with towels and a chair, and the three worked to dry her off and warm her up. The extent of the woman’s injuries became clear; she had major cuts on her arms and legs that Daniels suspected would need stitches.
The woman explained that she had slipped and fallen into the water when she was out blowing leaves off of her sea wall.
“I looked at the sea wall,” said Daniels. “It was a 5-foot drop to the water, and some larger rocks were mixed in at the base of the wall.”
She told the good Samaritans that she had not hit her head. And she had enough good humor that by the time her husband arrived, she said she was worried he was going to have to watch the Kansas City Chiefs game from the emergency room.
“After the neighbor and her husband were on the dock and taking care of her, we knew the lady was going to be alright,” said Daniels. “So Jeff got back into the boat, with his soggy clothes, soaked wallet and now a non-working phone. We stuck around to make sure that everything was going to be fine, and once we were reassured by the husband and neighbor that they had it under control, we continued with the tournament.”
Daniels calls Sell his new hero, but readers will recognize this as a team effort. Thank you to both Alan Daniels and Jeff Sell, two of Missouri’s best, for stepping in and helping when someone needed them most.
