Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Mar 04/02) - Dave Bergunder celebrated a special Christmas with his family after nearly drowning just two weeks before the holiday and living to talk about what happened.

Trapped in an upside-down pickup flooded with freezing water, Bergunder had an awful feeling he was dying. An air pocket in the cab was shrinking, and he couldn't escape.

A Hay River resident for 18 years who worked as operations manager for the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corp., Bergunder, 44, transferred to Manitoba in July 2000.

Around 1 p.m. on Dec. 7 he was on his way to meet members of Lake Winnipeg's Matheson Island Fisherman's Co-op.

"A deer came out from the left-hand side of the road. I slowed down to miss and lost control of the truck. It weaved around and I went backwards into a ditch, flipped over and crashed through the ice."

He had trouble escaping from his seatbelt and couldn't open or smash the window. The truck, a Dodge Dakota rental, was sinking.

"Then I heard some banging on the truck. Someone banged for a while, then left. The air pocket just filled up and I basically drank water and drowned," he says.

Saved by an 'angel'

Bergunder describes a life-after-death feeling in the frozen water of being bathed with a warm glow. The experience was "amazing and real."

The banging came from passing motorist Leslie Mowatt, "the biggest angel you ever saw." Unable to smash a window because the truck had sunk too deep, Mowatt drove a few miles to where some hunters had parked their trucks. In the back of one he found a chain.

Mowatt used it to haul Bergunder and his vehicle from the icy water, flipping it upright.

By then a forestry crew had stopped, and everyone on the scene "somehow" got Bergunder breathing again. He remembers little from then and hours that followed, except for feeling extremely cold.

Later he learned he was submerged for up to a half-hour and his core body temperature was 3 C. That's why he survived.

The nearest town with a hospital, Arborg, was a half-hour away. He was taken in the forestry truck until it met up with an ambulance. Bergunder was then driven from Arborg's health centre to Winnipeg, another hour-and-a- half south. He almost drowned again on the way -- both lungs were still filled with water.

"They put me on life support but I don't recall anything until the next day. I woke up all full of hoses."

Bergunder has since met his lifesaver. It turns out Mowatt has a history of saving lives. He once went onto Lake Winnipeg during a storm one dark night to pluck three men from a sinking boat.

On another occasion, he swam into a river to rescue three drowning children.

Bergunder suffered complications like pneumonia and has high blood pressure, but is back to work.

He has a wife, Donna, a son, Curtis, and a daughter, Shannon.

"I'm very, very lucky. You see life differently. It was a very special Christmas."