Revised - When Shanahan Blake-Simon, 19, saw someone drowning in the middle of Ear Lake on June 21, he didn’t think twice.

In seconds, he had taken off into the lake.

“When I got there, I honestly didn’t think I made it; he was just floating there,” Blake-Simon told the Star on Wednesday.

He was on time, thankfully, and now some Whitehorse firefighters who responded to the scene want to nominate Blake-Simon for the Commissioner of Yukon’s Bravery Award.

“I have no doubt that if Shanahan didn’t act as he did, that it probably would have been a very bad outcome,” said firefighter Nicholas O’Carroll. “Potentially the worst outcome.”

It was early evening, about 7:00, when Blake-Simon and his girlfriend, Laker Cunning, were hanging out by the lake, located off Robert Service Way. There was a scattering of other groups nearby.

As they sat, they saw a group of three male teenagers and watched as two got in a truck and drove around the lake while the third tried to swim across to meet them.

Then they noticed something.

“He just stopped swimming,” Blake-Simon said.

At that point, they heard some faint calls for help and Blake-Simon said “we realized he was drowning.”

It took him about four or five minutes to reach the 14-year-old swimmer in distress out in the lake, a distance Blake-Simon reckons was 45 to 60 metres (150 to 200 feet).

When he got there and saw the teenager floating motionless, he thought he was too late.

Blake-Simon had a little first aid training, but at this point, he said, he just went blank and began working on instinct, bringing the victim’s head and chest above water and attempting to get him to the far shore.

“In that situation, I just panicked and did what I thought was best,” he said.

He got about halfway to shore when fatigue began kicking in.

“I was ready to pass out at that point,” he said.

So, he started yelling to the other two teenagers in the truck to help.

They grabbed a log and waded out into the lake to help, getting Blake-Simon and the drowning victim to shore just in time for the teenager to start puking.

“I think if those two boys didn’t help me, I wouldn’t have made it,” Blake-Simon said.

Firefighters, RCMP officers and paramedics arrived on-scene just in time to help pull the pair out of the water.

A woman who was at the lake with her family had called 911 after Blake-Simon jumped in, according to Cunning.

The distressed swimmer was already fully conscious by the time Emergency Medical Services personnel took over and began treating him.

O’Carroll said Blake-Simon was very humble, but it was his swimming ability and fitness that allowed him to successfully rescue the swimmer.

“It was really good to see a member of the public who has some skills and was able to make the right call without endangering lives,” O’Carroll said.

He added that thankfully, in this situation, the skills were there, but he wouldn’t want people putting themselves in unnecessary risk in similar situations without the proper training or ability.

“Obviously we don’t want people putting themselves into danger; that usually causes more problems,” he said. “But in this case, he was a competent swimmer; he was in good condition.”

The Commissioner’s awards, created in 1980, are handed out to Yukoners for bravery or for public volunteer service.

According to the Yukon government website, the bravery award “recognizes someone who has performed an outstanding act of bravery and has responded with great effort at considerable personal risk in hazardous circumstances to save or safeguard, or attempted to save or safeguard, the life of 1 or more people.”

O’Carroll said the fire department responds to four or five swimmer-in-distress calls each year, but most are in the Yukon River, not in lakes.

“When we have these swimming incidents, we all go as fast as we can, ’cause we know they can be so deadly.”

Blake-Simon reckons Emergency Medical Services personnel got to the lake in about 10 minutes.

To better prevent these incidents, O’Carroll encourages people to wear some sort of personal floatation device if heading out into the water during the hot weather.

He also wanted to make sure people know to call 911 right away if they see someone drowning.

“You don’t get in trouble if it turns out everyone’s safe,” he said in a text to the Star. “The key thing is time.”