Officer praised for saving man, curious pooch from Intracoastal Waterway
Gail and Steve McMillan sit with dog Molly and Officer Daniel Turnof near where Steve almost drowned. Molly broke her leg a few months earlier. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By John Pacenti
Let’s just say Molly, a 16-year-old goldendoodle, is one very lucky — and very loved — canine.
When Molly and her owner, Steve McMillan, fell off a dock into the Intracoastal Waterway at night on March 11, a quick-responding Manalapan police officer helped save them both. Officer Daniel Turnof lay on his belly on the dock and reached one arm toward the water, securing McMillan, who in turn held on to the pooch until Palm Beach County Fire Rescue could arrive.
When Turnof got there, McMillan, 79, was in the water holding onto a crossbeam of the dock at their Manalapan residence on Lands End Road.
“Whoever the guy was that was lying on the dock, his hand down, holding my hand, may have made all the difference in the world, because I don’t know whether I could have held on to that crossbeam anymore,” McMillan said.
Turnof — who will be honored with the life-saving award at the next Town Commission meeting for his work — said when he got there, the first thing McMillan said was, “Help my dog first.”
This is where we need to rewind. About six months ago, around Halloween, Molly broke one of her right legs at the McMillans’ home in California.
The veterinarians all suspected cancer, which is often the cause of broken legs in older dogs. One wanted to amputate, but McMillan’s spouse, Gail, kept getting second opinions. It turned out Molly didn’t have cancer, and the bone was set.
“She’s still happy and trotting along and eats and drinks and, you know, loves her treats,” Gail McMillan said in a telephone call from the vet’s office on April 17. “She’s still going.”
Officer Daniel Turnof will be honored with a life-saving award at a Town Commission meeting for rescuing Steve McMillan and his dog, Molly.
So is her husband, despite battling Parkinson’s disease, which makes his balance a bit iffy. Around 10 p.m., both her dog and her spouse decided to go for a little walk to the end of their dock, with Molly on a leash. Molly likes to put her snout over the edge and look at the water — and that’s when it happened.
“Next thing I know, I’m in the water, and I went under and struggled back up,” Steve McMillan said. “My view was, hell, this is it for me. I am really not a swimmer of any sort.”
But McMillan then saw Molly, still with her leash on, dog-paddling in the Intracoastal.
“She’s just been through three months of therapy, from surgery, from having her leg broken, and it’s like if I drown, my dog is going to drown, too, and my wife will kill us both,” he said.
By happenstance, Gail McMillan had turned off the TV to make a phone call when she heard her husband yelling for help. She called 911 at 10:07 p.m.
The situation was no joking matter. Her husband could feel the steady current of the Intracoastal.
“It was quite stressful,” she said. “I was so panicked and screaming for my neighbors to come because I didn’t know whether he had a heart attack or a stroke or what. How did he get in the water?”
That is when Officer Turnof arrived and located McMillan and Molly with the help of a neighbor. He noticed that the situation was dire as McMillan had his leg around the piling, which had barnacles on it.
“So, he was getting cut up pretty bad,” Turnof said. “Obviously, he’s concerned about the dog. I wasn’t going to argue it. So he had the dog around, I believe, his left arm.”
Turnof got on his stomach. “I reached down, and I slowly pulled him towards me, and then I grabbed a nice, good grip on his arm with both hands.”
Fire Rescue then arrived and used a surfboard and a ladder to rescue both McMillan and Molly. McMillan estimated he had been in the cold Intracoastal waters for about 40 minutes.
Police Chief Jeff Rasor praised Turnof, who has been on the Manalapan force for two years. “This is the expectation. Obviously, he did an outstanding job,” Rasor said. “Certainly his response time was incredible.”
Gail McMillan said that the incident took a toll on the couple and their pooch for a few weeks.
“We both couldn’t even leave the house. It was rough. It was scary,” she said. “But now I just have to laugh about it. Now we just laugh.”
Comments