Mansfield City Council president guides rafters back to safety during storm

MANSFIELD — Sarah Frank watched her uncle walk toward the Clear Fork Reservoir docks on Sunday evening in pouring rain and didn’t know what he was doing.

“He had grabbed an umbrella and a few towels and was walking toward his boat because there were two guys on a raft trying to paddle in a storm,” Frank said. “We looked at the radar and thought it was just going to be a five minute storm, but it was longer than that.”

Frank said her uncle David Falquette didn’t ask anyone else at their family picnic for help.

“He was just get-up-and-go when these guys were paddling in really nasty weather,” she said. “It was super windy, so they couldn’t move through the powerful storm, but Dave started up his boat and threw them a rope.”

Falquette, Mansfield City Council president, said he’s never helped anyone out of storm on the reservoir before.

“We were all in a camper looking out over the lake, and when I saw them losing ground and blowing backward, I know they needed help,” he said. “It was a simple as that.”

Falquette said it took him about a minute to untie his pontoon boat and start the engine to steer out to the men on the raft boat.

“We didn’t exchange names and numbers or anything, I just took them back to the main marina dock, which was probably 1,000 yards away from where they were,” he said.

The National Weather Service of Cleveland recorded a mostly sunny day before the evening storm came in after 5 p.m. Falquette said he didn’t see any other boats near the men on the raft. 

Frank said the family greeted her uncle with applause when he came back to the picnic.

“What was funny was how he didn’t say anything before going out there,” she said. “But that’s just who he is. We were all relieved that he did that and that those guys were OK.”