May 23, 2001
By David Grimes
Members of a specialized search and rescue group made a daring rescue near Glasgow Wednesday afternoon, as they pulled two men out of the raging James River.
The trained air crew from the Naval Air Station Oceana Search and Rescue Group from Virginia Beach were summoned to the area Wednesday afternoon to assist the Glasgow Rescue Squad and the Glasgow Fire Department in rescuing what started out being a stranded kayaker and ended with the rescue of not only the kayaker, but one of their own.
According to Lt. Commander Mike Pampalone of the NAS Oceana SAR Group, they received a call from Langley Air Force Base at 4:55 pm, that their assistance was needed for a water rescue in Glasgow. A four-member rescue crew was assembled and departed Oceana at 5:35 pm. The crew then arrived at Glasgow at 6:40 pm.
"Our first report was that there was only one person that needed to be rescued. However, once we arrived we were informed that there were now two victims," Pampalone told the Rockbridge Weekly Thursday afternoon. "We made the first rescue of the kayaker who was stranded on a rock in the middle of the James River. That person was Cale Jaffe of Charlottesville. It was reported that Jaffe was stranded for nearly five hours after waves knocked him from his kayak.
Jaffe and his companion, Damien Jackson, were kayaking down the James when the waves knocked him from his kayak and caused him to lose his paddle. Jaffe then swam to a nearby rock. Meanwhile, Jackson made it to shore safely and notified rescue personnel.
According to Captain Lisa Rogers of the Glasgow Rescue Squad, that the call came in around 3:30 pm.
"We put the Zodiac and Jet Ski at the Glasgow loading dock and worked our way down the shore line because of the calmer waters," Rogers said. "As we went further down, the water got swifter and we saw Danny (Smith) who was on the Jet Ski, drop down about eight feet and go under," she added, "At one point, all we could see was his helmet." Meanwhile, Rogers, who was in the Zodiac with another squad member, John Ellington, got hung up on some debris. "Getting hung up saved us from overturning," she said. "We managed to tie ourselves off to some trees."
"While this was happening we could see Danny hanging on to the overturned Jet Ski and working his way toward the rock that Jaffe was stranded on," she stated. "Danny eventually worked his way to a tree and stood on it's trunk."
Pampalone said, "when we first arrived, we saw the man on the rock and we made the rescue on him. After rescuing him and dropping him off on shore, was when we learned of the second victim."
"He (Smith) was standing on a small tree about eight inches in diameter," the Lt. Commander said.
The rescue crew, operating from a SH-3 Sea King, then went back and pulled Smith from the raging James. They then landed at the Glasgow Carnival Grounds where Smith was reunited with fellow squad members.
Rogers added that members of the Big Island and Bedford emergency crews had put a lifeline across the James just in case Jaffe or Smith ended up downstream.
"The members of the Glasgow Fire Department were a big help to us," noted Rogers. "They had members up and down the bank helping to keep an eye on us."
Crew members from the NAS Oceana SAR Group were Lt. Commander Mike Pampalone (aircraft commander), Lt. Commander Jim McDowell (co-pilot), AE2 Dave Brusby (crew chief and rescue swimmer) and HM2 Chris Conley (crew member).
Pampalone added that the last time this particular crew did an inland rescue was during the North Carolina flood of 1999, when they rescued people from the Tar River.
Both Jaffe and Smith were uninjured in the ordeal. Assisting the Glasgow Rescue Squad, were the Glasgow Fire Department, the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Big Island Rescue Squad, and the Bedford Rescue Squad.