In 2009, a mother threw her children off the Sellwood Bridge into the Willamette River, resulting in the death of a 4 year-old boy, while his 7 year-old sister survived after being pulled from the water by a citizen.
The event exposed a weakness in Portland's river rescue response, after it took 44 minutes for Portland Fire and Rescue to respond in the powerful but slow-moving David Campbell fireboat in the early morning darkness from Station 6 in Northwest Portland. To insure more timely response for future river rescues, Commissioner Leonard and Chief Klum developed a plan to improve river response in the downtown core that included adding a maneuverable river rescue boat to the Bureau's fleet on the Willamette River, and ultimately placing the rescue boat at the to-be-reconstructed fire station located at the eastern foot of the Hawthorne Bridge. The addition of a maneuverable rescue craft, coupled with its location at a central city fire station on the Willamette will dramatically decrease response times for river rescues in the downtown core.
In the Fall of 2009, Commissioner Leonard asked the Council to fund a new rescue craft as part of this approach, and the Council approved the funding. Today, Portland Fire & Rescue took delivery of the new craft, and it was launched at Sundance Marina on the Columbia River. This new boat is equipped with two powerful engines that will improve responses against the strong current in the Columbia. The addition of this new craft allows the Fire Bureau to move Rescue Boat 17, currently located on the Columbia River near Jantzen Beach, to the Willamette River.
Click here for Oregonian coverage of the new rescue boat.
Here are some photos of the new rescue boat, as well as a cool photo of Fire Boat 17, known in the Fire Bureau as "The Vernon Buss":
Fire Boat 17 "The Vernon Buss"