Jacksonville police sergeant lauded for saving woman floating in St. Johns River

June 21, 2017

The Florida Times Union - Jacksonville.com
June 8, 2017

Jacksonville police sergeant lauded for saving woman floating in St. Johns River

Sgt. Billy Irvin's Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Facebook photograph received 1,255 shares, 655 comments and 6,000 reactions within the first two hours of its posting Thursday afternoon, and numbers kept climbing.

The Sheriff's Office said someone called 911 around lunchtime Tuesday about a possible body floating in the St. Johns River south of the Main Street bridge. Police responded and Irvin took off his boots and dove in.

He got to the body in the middle of the river between the Hyatt Regency Riverfront and The Jacksonville Landing and found out it was a woman, and she was alive, the Sheriff's Office posted on its Facebook. Three construction workers also saw what was going on and assisted recovering the victim from the water onto their boat.

The 29-year-old woman was suffering from hypothermia and taken to a hospital, according to the police report. She told officers she did not want to kill herself and that she "just wanted to go for a swim." But further investigation showed that officers had been called an hour earlier to her Westside home in reference to a person making suicidal threats.

The Sheriff's Office's posting calls Irvin "a hero to all of us and all of the people who witnessed this going on."

"So many citizens came up just to shake his hand thanking him for his heroic efforts," it said. "Sgt. Billy Irvin went above and beyond the call of duty. Risking his life to save another. Amazing job Sgt. Irvin."

U.S. Rep. John Rutherford, a former Jacksonville sheriff, also tweeted, "Thank you Sgt. Irvin for your commitment to keeping families safe!"

But it wasn't just the sergeant's actions that generated so many responses. Plenty of others gushed over the photo of the dripping wet, buff sergeant standing on the Riverwalk.