LEESVILLE, La. (KALB) – A month after Fort Polk nurse Brandi Barrett jumped into Alligator Lake to save Doug Mitchell, the two got to meet in person. Mitchell, the pastor at Pine Ridge Baptist Church in DeRidder brought his guardian angel a bag of Lifesavers candy.

Mitchell and his uncle Earl Smith had come to the lake to fish on December 3rd. A sunbathing turtle on a limb marks the spot where Smith says a gust of wind knocked him out of their small boat.

“All of a sudden he just quit moving and went down,” said Smith. “By the time I got a hold of him and pulled him up out of it there was about a minute there I thought he was dead.” Mitchell said he just remembers that he was drowning and joked he didn’t have the ‘sense’ to be worried. “Oh I was worried!” his wife Joan chimed in.

Nearby, Barrett’s neighbors Bob and Kelly Robinson, a retired Washington state couple traveling cross country had heard Smith’s calls for help.

“He said I don’t know how long I can hold on…I could see he had Mr. Mitchell, holding him up and the only thing that was there was his head bobbing.” Bob Robinson added that he and his wife decided against trying to swim to the drowning man and went to Barrett’s RV thinking she might have something they could use.

The Army reserve Captain abandoned her lawn mower and yard work when the Robinson’s came to her. “I just started pulling stuff off…threw my cell phone in the grass.” And before the Robinson’s could grab some sort of flotation device, she jumped into the freezing water.

Barrett’s decision to take the icy plunge was instinctive. “I just knew I couldn’t leave him out there and I knew that he couldn’t last too much longer,” she said.

“It was very mossy and I could feel it wrapping around my feet and everything and I just figured if I just kicked then eventually I was going to get out there.”

Then with the help of a rope the Robinsons had, Barrett managed to pull the boat some 50-70 feet to shore where they waited for paramedics. There’s still an indention in the grass there.

Mitchell suffered from congestive heart failure as a result. He had just celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary at his church the night before. Barrett remembers the day she learned Mitchell had survived.