CANTON – Jarud Fish is Mark Blanchette’s angel.

The 24-year-old Freeport resident and mechanic arrived at his father’s camp on Lake Anasagunticook five minutes before Blanchette found himself in below 50-degree water in the middle of the lake.

Fish immediately raced next door, grabbed a canoe and a paddle, and started paddling furiously to get out to Blanchette, 45.

“If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have made it,” said a tired but very much alive Blanchette from his home Thursday night.

Blanchette, the town’s assistant fire chief, had been out on the lake with the department’s newly repaired air boat, a craft bought by the department after the flood of 2003 using $7,000 from an emergency Community Development Block Grant.

He said he went to turn the air boat around when it apparently caught the water.

“The front end came up like the Titanic,” he said.

He said he had planned to put on a wet suit before going out onto the lake to test the boat, but the temperature was just too hot. He did have a sweatshirt on and a life jacket, which very well could have helped save his life, too.

Sgt. Rick Mills of the Maine Warden Service, who was at the site, said hypothermia can set in quickly, particularly when the water temperature is below 50 degrees. He wouldn’t say how long someone could survive in it, saying that it varies among people.

Blanchette was in the water from 20 to 25 minutes, said fire Chief Wayne Dube.

Blanchette was taken to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston where he was treated for hypothermia and released a few hours later.

He said his core temperature had dropped from 98 to 86 degrees.

He believes he swam about a 100 yards before Fish got to him. Then Fish paddled as fast as he could for the next 200 yards while Blanchette held on to the side of the canoe.

“He worked his butt off,” said Blanchette.

“I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. He kept urging me on,” said Fish.

Both Fish and Blanchette said it was better to have Blanchette hang onto the side rather than try to get into the canoe. It could have capsized, they said.

Fish said he was getting ready to take the family’s boat out of the water when he saw Blanchette’s boat roll over.

“He started screaming for help. I ran to get the canoe and then dragged him to the neighbor’s dock,” he said.

He said he didn’t dare try to use the family’s power boat because it might not start and he didn’t want to waste time.

Fish was so tired when he got back to shore with Blanchette that the Canton Fire Department members had to throw him a rope.

“We got him ashore, then Med-Care arrived,” said Fish. “I had to do what I had to do. It feels good. If we (his father Paul was there, too) hadn’t been there, anything could have happened.”

Mills said Blanchette was extremely fortunate.

“Once your core temperature drops, you’re in trouble,” said Mills.

A salvage company is expected to arrive Monday morning to retrieve the air boat from Lake Anasagunticook, which also is called Canton Lake. Dube said he expects the recovery will cost about $600, but he wasn’t certain where the money would come from.

Dube said the air boat, used primarily for rescuing people in times of flood, is likely under in 23-25 feet of water. He doubts if any of the 13 or 14 gallons of gasoline in the boat’s tank had leaked because of the way it is constructed.

He contacted the Department of Environmental Protection about the accident soon after it happened.

As for Blanchette, he’s just happy to be alive and is grateful to Fish.

“I owe a lot to him,” said Blanchette. “He’s my angel.”