TOWNSHIP 6, RANGE 12, (AP) – The deaths of two people after their canoe overturned on Chamberlain Lake was a tragedy, but the Memorial Day incident would have been worse if not for Robert and Susan Murchison.

The Lincoln couple were fishing in a 16-foot boat when the pair spotted the capsized canoe. Realizing no one would survive long in the cold water, they began pulling in their fishing lines. Then Susan Murchinson spotted a dark lump.

The lump turned out to be Scott Valente of Raymond, who was clinging to a float bag after watching a friend die in the icy water.

The couple managed to pull Valente into the boat. Susan Murchison, a former Penobscot Valley Hospital emergency medical technician, began cutting off his clothes and rubbing his extremities to restore his circulation.

The man was groggy, but identified himself. He said he was with two other men and a black Labrador retriever when their boat sank, Murchison said. They had been in the water about two hours.

Valente told Game Warden Robert Johansen afterward that he didn’t remember being pulled out of the water or getting out of the boat, according to Mark Latti, spokesman for the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

“They certainly saved his life,” Latti said of the Murchisons.

After leaving Valente at Nugent’s Chamberlain Lake Camps on the opposite shore, the Murchisons returned and found Kevin Grant, 40, of Houlton, floating face down, an apparent victim of hypothermia. Their efforts to revive him failed, they said.

The body of the other victim, Douglas Harmon, 34, of Scarborough, was later recovered.

The Murchisons have mixed feelings about being called heroic for helping to rescue Valente.

“I am pleased that we were there and could help,” Robert Murchison said. “I just wish we could have saved the other two as well. I wish we had been there sooner. I guess everybody feels that way.”

Susan Murchison said Valente told her he was thinking of letting go of the waterproof gear bag before he was rescued.

“Once I got to talking to him, he said he would decide to let go of the bag and get it over with, but then he would just hang on just a little longer. It was just the will to live, I guess,” Murchison said.