On July 18, 1986, Mr. Ross Spence helped to rescue from drowning a couple whose car had been swept off the road by the flooding Pembina River near Lodgepole, Alberta. Mr. Spence had watched from shore as another man plunged into the cold, swift current to aid the two victims, one of them a non-swimmer. The rescuer succeeded in rescuing the woman but was unable to extricate the male victim. Mr. Spence then grabbed hold of a rope, tied it around himself and, at great personal risk, proceeded some distance into the turbulent water to aid the man. Reaching him, he pulled the victim from the bushes and supported him until a helicopter lifted both men out of the river.