Powell man recovering after near-fatal fall in canal

Posted 11/15/18

For more than six hours, Lanny Heaney laid at the bottom of the Garland Canal, bleeding and half-submerged in water. As the 80-year-old man’s calls for help went unanswered, day turned to …

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Powell man recovering after near-fatal fall in canal

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For more than six hours, Lanny Heaney laid at the bottom of the Garland Canal, bleeding and half-submerged in water. As the 80-year-old man’s calls for help went unanswered, day turned to night, the temperature started dropping and rain began to fall.

“I was just about ready to give up,” Heaney said.

But then, shortly before 8:30 p.m. on Oct. 28, Heaney saw a light and heard someone calling down to him. Delirious from the long ordeal, it took him several minutes to recognize that his rescuer was his son, Robert Heaney.

“I was quite a mess,” Lanny Heaney said, but “boy, did I ever feel good when my son found me.”

Help was soon rushing to the scene, just west of Powell along U.S. Highway 14-A, roughly across from the Red Barn Veterinary Clinic.

Dispatchers sent a Park County Sheriff’s Office deputy — who had already been helping look for Heaney — an ambulance from Powell Valley Hospital and the Powell Volunteer Fire Department to the scene.

“I think they had every piece of equipment in Park County,” Heaney mused — and he’s appreciative of them all.

He and his son were particularly impressed with Powell Valley Healthcare EMT KaitLynn Norman, who, upon arriving at the scene, hustled down the embankment and immediately jumped into the water to begin assisting Heaney

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” said Robert. “No fear.”

Rescuing Heaney was a team effort, as it took more than a dozen Powell firefighters and EMTs to carry him up out of the canal on a backboard.

Robert took to Facebook to thank all the first responders for their rapid response and assistance. Robert believes his father wouldn’t have made it much longer, as “he was pretty much a goner.”

Heaney said he’d parked along 14-A around 2:15 p.m. on Oct. 28, planning to do some fishing in the low-level canal.

But on his very first cast, Heaney lost his footing and went tumbling down the embankment.

His body was badly battered in the fall.

“It was terrifying,” Heaney recalled in a Friday interview, “because I bled so bad I couldn’t see.”

Half of his body wound up in the water. He cried out for help, but along a 70 mph highway, down in a ditch, there was little hope of being heard.

And so he laid there, stuck.

Eventually, “my arms went dead and my legs went dead,” he said, adding, “It’s an awful sensation.”

As it became darker and colder, Heaney became hypothermic and almost incoherent.

In the meantime, Robert had begun looking for his father after spotting his abandoned vehicle along the highway. Robert later checked Powell Valley Hospital for any sign of his father, and a staffer there called law enforcement to help look for the octogenarian.

While a deputy took up the search, Robert went back to his father’s car. This time, he said he decided to look down in the canal, where the beam of his flashlight illuminated his bloodied father.

“It took me days to get that image out of my head,” Robert said.

He called 911 at 8:21 p.m. and first responders carried Heaney to safety not long after that. All told, it was a roughly seven-hour trial for the Powell resident.

That was just the start of a long, difficult recovery, however.

Heaney suffered injuries across his body, including to his head, shoulder, knees and shins; his face scabbed over “like a helmet” and the bruises sometimes make it hard to breathe, he said.

But Heaney is alive — and offering “big thanks” to the many first responders who worked to save his life.

“I’m well enough to complain,” Heaney quipped; he happened to mention that the fall forced him to miss the rest of deer hunting season.

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