Solomon Florea has lived in a houseboat on the Columbia River for about two decades and has become grimly attuned to dangers on the water. Florea sees a drowning victim on the water every few years, he said, and feared that’s what had happened last week when he saw a man 100 yards out, bobbing next to an empty sailboat.

Grabbing his kayak and a life preserver, Florea rushed out and discovered the man was still alive — but his strength was fading in the frigid waters. He pulled him to shore on Hayden Island, west of Jantzen Beach, and used the man’s phone to call 911.

“I was going to try and get him over to my house, but, you know, he’s in pretty bad shape,” Florea, 46, told emergency dispatcher Holly Campbell in that 911 call. Florea and the boater had landed on a stretch of beach away f

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