Marine Corps Base Quantico -- “If I were a cat, I’d still have at least two lives left,” joked Thomas Tobias.
Tobias, 83, drowned in the Potomac River while participating in the Quantico Triathlon race Aug. 20. He was revived by two Marine Corps Base Quantico firefighters, who were recognized at Security Battalion’s monthly formation Sept. 1. Tobias attended the event with his wife, Joyce, and his daughter, Ann Marie Chaney, who was in the river with him and alerted first responders to her father’s dire situation.
Sgt. Steve Denton and Firefighter Thomas Seablom, both nine-year employees of Quantico Fire and Emergency Services (QFES), received special commendation from Security Battalion leadership for their lifesaving actions. Afterwards, Seablom embraced Tobias and Denton told him it was good to see him looking so well. Tobias said he’d been dismissed by his cardiologist just the day before.
“I don’t remember what happened [during the Triathlon],” Tobias said, addressing the Marines, civilian police officers and emergency management technicians gathered in front of the Provost Marshal Office aboard base. “I had a plan for finishing the race and obviously it didn’t work out. I want to thank everyone who helped me that day—my daughter for alerting them to my condition and the two firefighters for saving my life.”
“Clearly someone else had a plan for you,” Bruce Sullivan, QFES chief, told Tobias, shaking his hand and passing over a challenge coin. “It wasn’t going to end that day for you.”
During the Triathlon, Seablom and Denton were tasked with monitoring the Potomac River portion of the race course in a rescue boat. They heard Chaney’s screams and saw her waving her arms for help as she struggled to keep her unresponsive father from sinking. They immediately headed their rescue boat toward Chaney and Tobias, carefully navigating around the more than 200 other swimmers in the water at the time.
“The hard part was getting to the drowned man safely … I had to make sure we didn’t hit any of the swimmers with the boat when I tried piloting the boat to him,” Seablom told Quantico Public Affairs staff in a phone interview after the event.
When they reached Tobias, Denton jumped into the water and with Seablom assisting from the boat, they maneuvered the drowned man out of the river. Tobias had no pulse and was not breathing. Denton began CPR while Seablom piloted the rescue boat back to shore.
“The 83-year-old man was drowned,” said Denton. “We probably worked on him for five minutes. We didn’t give up. We just did what we had to do. Once we started to see he was aspirating, we flipped him over and started to get more water out of him. By the time we got to shore, we had a pulse and were able to get him into the Quantico ambulance.
“I was not going to let him go,” Denton said.
A QFES ambulance transported Tobias to Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, where he stayed for three nights. He was released on Tuesday, Aug. 23.
Denton is a father of three from King George, Virginia and is the recipient of three other lifesaving awards. Seablom, a father of two, is from Alexandria, Virginia and now resides in Stafford. He is one of only a handful of firefighters licensed to pilot rescue watercraft and is the recipient of one other lifesaving award.