‘His skin was really pale’: State trooper makes water rescue in Tanana River

NENANA, Alaska (KTUU) - When Nathan Hollenbeck arrived in Nenana to help a man stuck in the chilly waters of the Tanana River, he had to think fast as the man was already hypothermic.

The six-year veteran of the Alaska State Troopers took swift action in the early morning hours Thursday to rescue a Fairbanks man who had fallen into the river and was having trouble getting out.

Hollenbeck said he got the call from a woman who could hear a man’s voice calling out for help, but couldn’t find out where it was coming from.

When he showed up at the sea wall separating the bank from the river around 2:45 a.m. Thursday, he found the woman looking down at the man.

“When I arrived, he was still clinging to the sea wall,“ Hollenbeck told Alaska’s News Source. ”The sea wall is like 13 to 15 feet high from the river’s surface.

“He was already pale. He was not really responding to us talking to him, and he was obviously weak and cold.”

Video from a body-worn camera on Hollenbeck’s uniform shows the man — identified by troopers as 37-year-old Fairbanks resident Jonathan Pitka — clinging to the side of the sea wall that lines the river.

“Can you reach this?” Hollenbeck calls out as he throws down a tow strap. “Try not to hit you.”

Hollenbeck backed up his patrol car and grabbed the tow strap in the back of his car, hooking it to his tailgate and lowering the rest of it to Pitka.

Unfortunately, the cold water and the strong current of the river made it challenging for Pitka to hold on, let alone claw his way up to safety.

With time dwindling to get Pitka out before his bodily functions began to shut down, Hollenbeck said he devised a plan.

“I had some more rope in the back of my vehicle. It’s just climbing rope, and I makeshifted myself a harness around my waist and legs and tied that off to my patrol vehicle, and I lowered myself down on the sea wall,” he explained.

From there, Hollenbeck was able to reach the man, who he said was struggling to hold on to the trooper.

“He was cold. His skin was really pale, and he just wasn’t responding to my voice,” Hollenbeck said. “You could see that he was struggling to even keep his head up.”

Hollenbeck said he decided to wrap the tow strap around Pitka’s arms and chest to hold him up and keep him from falling beneath the water’s surface.

As Pitka began to drift out of consciousness, Hollenbeck said he lowered himself into the frigid water to keep Pitka’s head above water, where he remained for roughly 30 minutes as rescue crews arrived.

Once a Nenana EMS crew arrived, Hollenbeck said they recruited a local resident with a boat to help pull Pitka out of the water and to safety.

Both Pitka and Hollenbeck were taken to a hospital for hypothermia treatment. Hollenbeck said his core temperature was down to 95 degrees.

“While I was in the water, I was losing dexterity, I was losing strength, and at times I lost my grip on Mr. Pitka, I lost my grip on the seawall and I had to rely on that harness that I made to keep me afloat to regain my strength [and] to keep Mr. Pitka’s head above the water,” Hollenbeck said.

Hollenbeck credited training he received at the Department of Public Safety Training Academy, which prepares troopers for cold-weather exposure in times they are called on to conduct a rescue.

Ultimately, Hollenbeck says he was doing a job he signed up for.

“Any trooper in the state would have done the exact same, just seeing the condition Mr. Pitka was in,” he said. “I have no doubt about that.”

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