Bend paddleboarder, hailed as hero, recounts river rescue

A 30-year-old paddleboarder who came to the rescue of a woman who was struggling in the Deschutes River near the dangerous Newport Avenue Bridge spillway said Monday he doesn’t consider himself a hero, just “somebody trying to help somebody out.”

Bend police hailed Tanner Boslau as a hero for coming to the aid of a woman who had lost her float on the Deschutes River and was swept toward the spillway on Sunday, clinging to a rope but exhausted by the swift current.

Police and fire crews responded at 3:24 p.m. Sunday to the reported water rescue, with people screaming for help and a woman in the water nearing the river spillway, said Lt. Nick Parker.

Two Bend officers responded within four minutes and found the woman, identified as Teresa Samano, 58, of Bend, in the middle of the river, just north of the bridge, clinging to a buoyed cable stretched across the river, Parker said.

Samano had lost her float and was threatening to let go of the cable, exhausted by the strong river current pushing her toward the spillway, the lieutenant said.

Boslau told NewsChannel 21 Monday evening he recognized the dangerous situation and quickly paddled down to the woman.

“Definitely wasn’t expecting it, going out on a Sunday afternoon, that we’d be helping save somebody,” Baslou said, agreeing to speak with us at his workplace, Kendall Toyota, where some co-workers were razzing him over his “hero” status.

Boslau said he was getting ready to take his paddleboard out when he saw someone waving.

“I heard someone yelling for help and turned around and charged down there,” he said.

Boslau said it was unusual, as he doesn’t often see floaters in that stretch of river, where there’s a warning sign of a spillway ahead.. He said there were three people near the spillway, with a woman in the middle of the river, screaming for help.

He said Samano was “scared, very scared. So I just tried to stay calm, keep her calm.” Because the woman was so shaken up, “we didn’t do a lot of talking, let the police do what they needed to do” he said.

Boslau said he never got a chance to talk to the woman, but the family did reach out on Facebook. “Thank you for being our hero!” Candice Samano wrote.

Boslau said the current is much stronger and there should be more signs warning people to get out before the spillway, to exit at the Galveston Avenue Bridge.

“I don’t look at it as a hero, just somebody trying to help somebody out,” he said.

But Lt. Parker said, “Boslau heroically placed himself in danger at the risk of helping Samano. He was able to hold onto Samano until an officer threw a rope to them. Boslau secured the rope around Samano and the officer pulled her to safety.”

Neither person sustained any injuries and did not require medical treatment.

“The Bend Police Department would like to formally commend and thank Tanner Boslau for risking his life to help rescue Teresa Samano,” Parker wrote. “Without his efforts, this likely could have had a much different ending.”