First Lieutenant Leslie Palmer, eyelids iced shut with frozen sweat and sea spray, buckled in the waist-deep snow, then slumped for cover against a tree uprooted by the fierce winds.
The Canadian Coast Guard sailor from Prince Rupert ripped off his gloves and exposed his fingers in the 30-below blizzard to clear his eyelashes.
Squinting, he saw the two stranded fishermen flicker their weak light in the distance. He struggled on.
It was Lt. Palmer's heroism on that January night in 2004 that saved the lives of the two beached men and earned him the Cross of Valour, the country's top honour for bravery.
"I owe him my life, so there's no question he is very much deserving of [the award]" Ray Kevis, whose shrimp boat crashed that night, said in an interview.
For hours, Mr. Kevis, 31, and fellow fisherman Lorne Demeria, 24, waited for a response to their distress signal after their ship rolled over in "freak winds."
Once they'd reached shore in a life raft, they sheltered themselves against the storm using a tarp, then split open an extra survival suit to use as a blanket.
"I was fairly close to the point where I felt like going to sleep, which was pretty close to the end," Mr. Kevis said.
Then they spotted Lt. Palmer dragging a pack with medical gear.
"I recall him when he first showed up on the beach, this great big man, very tall. We were quite happy to see him coming," Mr. Kevis said.
Governor-General Michaëlle Jean announced yesterday that the 21-year veteran will be awarded the decoration for bravery for the 0.8-kilometre journey he made across a rocky shoreline to administer medical care to the pair of hypothermic survivors.
Lt. Palmer is only the 20th recipient of the award since it was created in 1972 to recognize "acts of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme peril."
Through winds blasting at up to 185 kilometres an hour, Lt. Palmer, 45, had hiked for an hour in the darkness in a brutal winter storm toward the men beached on the shores of Grenville Channel. The Coast Guard rescue boat had dropped him from a safe location.
It was with his eyes frozen shut and fearing he had trekked too far in the darkness and overshot the survivors, that he wondered whether he should proceed.
His radio crackled a final message, Lt. Palmer recalled: "Les, if you can hear this, we're putting the dry bag with all the hypothermia gear and the immersion suits and we're throwing them over. Good luck, buddy."
Soon after, he lost transmission.
"That was the point when I started to think: Have I passed my limitations here?" Lt. Palmer said yesterday. "But I took a rest, sucked it up and then I thought, well wait a minute. If I'm in this condition, what condition are they in?"
He crawled on his belly and navigated the rocky terrain until he saw Mr. Demeria jumping and his mouth moving. It was around 11:20 p.m.
"I couldn't hear him screaming because the wind was just so loud and the sea was crashing," Lt. Palmer said.
Under the tarp, he found Mr. Kevis barely responsive and both men showing signs of hypothermia. Realizing he was in need of more supplies, he made the painful trek back to the Point Henry Coast Guard vessel, gathered heat packs and returned to the victims at the beach.
"The adrenaline was just flowing. Now I knew I had survivors," Lt. Palmer said. "I got back with the gear and it was remarkable, after 15 to 20 minutes, watching the response from Ray as he was able to carry on conversations."
Four hours later, medical teams arrived.
"I knew there was bravery awards, but I didn't realize at the time there were three levels of awards and I'm definitely proud and overwhelmed," Lt. Palmer said of his honour.
Lt. Palmer, who guesses he's done more than 700 rescue missions, will receive his Cross of Valour at Rideau Hall. Eight other brave Canadians will also receive honours at the same ceremony, the date of which has not been announced.
Honouring other heroes
Oct. 23, 1969. Chief engine room artificer Vaino Olavi Partanen of Dartmouth, N.S., remained at his post in order to inform the bridge watch officer of the explosion in the engine room of HMCS Kootenay. He died moments after making his attempt.
Oct. 23, 1969.Sergeant Lewis John Stringer, a supply technician from Antigonish, N.S., aboard HMCS Kootenay instructed others to crawl out by way of the galley. He waited until the last man was evacuated before attempting to leave, and died of smoke inhalation.
Nov. 12, 1971. Flight attendant Mary Dohey of Mississauga, Ont., pacified an armed hijacker and saved the lives of the crew and all the passengers on board.
March 30, 1974. Kenneth Bishop of South Hazelton, B.C., withstood severe burns to his body to save the life of a man who was flung from his truck after it collided with a fuel tanker and burst into flames.
Sept. 4, 1974.Switchboard operator Jean Swedberg of Merritt, B.C., ran door to door to alert hotel guests about a fire that had begun on the ground floor. She died but managed to save all but one of the guests.
Dec. 29, 1977. When Thomas Hanes of Fortune Bay, Nfld., saw that his eight-year-old cousin had fallen through the ice of a frozen pond, he jumped into the water and kept pushing the young boy onto the ice. Mr. Hanes drowned.
July 11, 1978. Prison guard Gaston Langelier of St. Cuthbert, Que., risked being shot when he tried to disarm one of five prisoners who forced several staff members down a flight of stairs. He was wounded three times before disarming the gunman.
Nov. 4, 1978. Sergeant Am édéo Garrammoneof Richelain, Que., attempted to save the life of a fellow soldier who was being stabbed by three men at an army base. He failed in his attempt and was stabbed in the chest just below the heart. He survived.
Nov. 19, 1978. Lester Fudge of Burin, Nfld., Harold Miller of Trinity Bay, Nfld., and Martin Sceviour of Burgoyne's Cove, Nfld., saved the lives of 12 crewmen trapped aboard a Danish trawler.
Sept. 9, 1980. When a fuel tanker rammed into the back of Anna Lang's car and sent her vehicle into the river, she rescued her two passengers, a woman and her four-year-old son from the submerged vehicle.
Sept. 26, 1981. Corporal Robert Teather of the RCMP's diving team from Delta, B.C., rescued two fishermen trapped in the overturned hull of a boat.
May 8, 1984. Veteran René Jalbert of Quebec City convinced a man who had entered the Quebec National Assembly and opened fire (killing three people and wounding 13 more) to sit with him in his office so that others could escape.
May 16, 1987. Constable David Cheverie of Charlottetown saved three children from a fire and got out of the house just seconds before a huge fireball shot up and set the entire house ablaze.
March 14, 1992. John Wendell MacLean saved his wife, son and grandson from a fire at his trailer in Inverness County, N.S. Despite three attempts to return for his daughter, she died. A few days later, he succumbed to his burns.
Aug. 27, 1993. After surviving a helicopter crash on Birch Mountain in Alberta, Douglas Fader of Fenelon Falls, Ont., went back into the burning wreckage to drag the pilot out to safety.
Nov. 12, 1996. Sergeant Keith Mitchell of Greenwood, N.S., and Master Corporal Bryan Pierce of Cold Lake, Alta., parachuted into Arctic waters to save an ill fisherman near Resolution Island, N.W.T.
Staff