Two men risk their lives to save another man from drowning
Ölfusá is Iceland's largest river and its immensely powerful. Photo: Iceland Monitor/Brynjar Gauti
Police officer Kolbeinn Helgi Kristjánsson and an unnamed man showed immense bravery when they put themselves at risk to safe a man that threw himself into Ölfusá River, by Selfoss in South Iceland.
Ölfusá is Iceland’s largest river and extremely powerful. This is not the first time someone has fallen into the river in recent years and he is lucky to be alive.
Threw himself into the river after his friend
The local police received a notification that someone was planning to jump into the river and Kristjánsson proceeded to go to the river along with two other police officers.
“We ran towards the man and saw him throw himself into the river, and his friend went in after him. I ran along the river down to a more shallow part of it, and waded into the river. The men drifted down the river and towards the rapids. When they got closer to the shallow part I went further into the river and managed to get to them. I then carried the man to land with his friend’s help.”
The man was sent directly to a hospital.
No other option than going into the river
The policemen that were at the scene believe that the other man saved his friend’s life when he jumped after him. If they had reached the rapids below the shallow part of the river where Kristjánsson caught them, he wouldn’t have had a chance.
“It wasn’t easy to fall asleep when I got home that morning,” says Kristjánsson. It’s very dangerous to wade into the Ölfusá river but in his mind he says, there was no other option.
