Drowning man in Belleville Lake saved by women in boat

A man jumped off a dock and was floating face-down in Belleville Lake in front of Building 30 of The Waverly on the Lake (formerly Harbour Club Apartments) just after 3 p.m. on Wednesday, May 12.
Mandee Oropeza said she was sitting outside on her apartment’s patio and heard a woman call out for help. She couldn’t see anything around the bushes, but when she got up and looked, she saw this man in the lake.
She said a female on the dock was calling, “Help, help. Please help. Call 911.” So, Oropeza said she called 911. The woman was calling out, “My boyfriend. My boyfriend. He’s dying. He’s drowning.”
The woman then saw a fishing boat out on the lake holding Diana and Melissa Tyler-Patterson and she started calling out to them.
Diana said they were fishing across the cove and heard her calling, but thought she was calling her dog. They saw some splashes in the water. They pulled up the anchor and turned to shore, calling out, asking if it was her dog and she said, “No, it’s my boyfriend.”
Diana, 48, said she had already taken off her shoes and she made a shallow dive into the lake. “I’ve never dove a day in my life,” she said, amazed at herself.
Her wife Melissa said she looked down and Diana was gone.
Diana swam to him, and turned him over, so he was face-up. She said he had been floating face down with his hands above his head. She turned him over and saw his eyes were open and fixed, his face white, his lips purple, and he was not moving.
She said, although she is not a strong swimmer, she grabbed onto him and swam to the boat which was very labor intensive. When she got close, Melissa threw out a rope and Diana let go of the man to grab the rope, but he started to sink, so she dropped the rope and grabbed him again. She said she put her shoulder under his chest and rammed him upward, putting his shoulder on the boat. She and Melissa held him upright and were calling the name his girlfriend had been calling. They tried to get him in the boat, but he was too heavy.
She said water suddenly came gushing out of his lips and he started breathing. They were both elated that he was alive.
She said later that she was traumatized at the time because she thought it might be a dead body.
Then Van Buren Township Police Officers Ryan McCormick, Andrew Fedel, and Katrina Velevska arrived. Oropeza said she was amazed at how Officer McCormick came running down the steep stairs to the beach, pulling off and discarding his heavy equipment as he ran and then jumped in the water. He swam the 25 yards over to the boat and helped the struggling women raise the man into the boat.
They got the man to the shore and although he was lethargic, he was able to be helped up the steep steps to get to the Huron Valley Ambulance. He was taken to the hospital to be checked out, according to the police report.
VBT Police Chief Jason Wright said Officers McCormick and Fedel also serve on the Public Safety Department’s Dive Team.
Diana said she and Melissa, who also live in the apartments, left the area after he was ashore to give them some privacy. She said she didn’t realize how cold the water was until after the incident ended.