WILTON – A part-owner of downtown’s Mainely Scuba was in critical condition Monday at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston after nearly drowning Sunday afternoon in Wilson Lake.
Jan Smith, 59, was scuba diving with some friends from the dive shop when she ran into problems breathing, according to Wilton police officer Bob Cole.
Cole said Smith’s dive partner, Aleece Kaulback, told him that when she realized Smith was having trouble breathing, she swam over to help her.
“She was doing buddy breathing, but was not successful,” Cole said. She tried to inflate Smith’s life jacket, but that wouldn’t inflate either. Scuba divers carry weights to bring them to the bottom, and wear heavy equipment.
Kaulback held Smith above water until a nearby boater, Dan Fonseca, arrived to help them, sending his 13-year-old nephew Jonathan Chasse to call 911. When Kaulback tried to grab hold of the rope and inflatable Fonseca threw to them, she lost her grip on Smith, who sank to the bottom of Wilson Lake.
“She went straight to the bottom – between 10 and 15 feet of water,” Cole said.
Fonseca and the rest of the divers searched for Smith, and Fonseca, standing in his pontoon boat, finally spotted her.
“I looked around, and about 30 yards behind the boat I saw a plume of bubbles,” Fonseca said. Divers pulled Smith out of the water and onto the beach. Cole found them there, he said.
Smith had been in the water around three minutes, he said.
The divers weren’t able to resuscitate her on the beach, but she was intubated in an ambulance on the way to Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmingtron and started breathing again. She was then sent to the CMMC.
, where she remained in critical condition Monday night.
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