Law Student of a few Months Back the Day: Jason Coates

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Sunday’s Washington Post magazine has a narrative by journalist Mike Wise that features his love of his dog, a brush with icy death, and Jason Coates, a George Washington University 1L, who saved him from that death. The timeliness of this post is questionable as the heroic feat dates back to January and the GW Hatchet reported on it in February (in an article that we linked to in passing). But if the Washington Post deems it timely, so do we.
Wise was out jogging on a winter night late in January and managed to fall through the ice on the Potomac River. He had been submerged for over three minutes with hypothermia setting in when Coates appeared.
Read the exciting and dramatic narrative, after the jump.


Wise writes:

A young man emerged from the darkness. He had dark hair and was wearing running clothes. I could tell by his labored breathing he had been on a long run. He began to walk down the bank.
“Hey, so what are you doing in the ice?” he said.
“Can you give me your hand?” I asked. I remember my tone being desperate, panicked.
At first he looked confused, like a student who had walked into the wrong classroom. But then he took another step, a few feet off the bank. Both his feet went through the ice, and he was in maybe up to his knees. He took another step, making sure he got his footing. I lunged toward him through the water, grabbing the ice as best as I could, and for the first time I felt the sensation of the bottom.
“I can stand, I can stand.”
Of all the things in my life that have given me relief from physical pain or emotional grief — massage, medication, the support of my sister and friends — nothing equaled the exhilarating feeling of touching the bottom of the C&O Canal that night. I later learned that the canal was built with a deep center channel, and that the drop-off was sharp and steep less than 10 feet from shore.
In saying “I can stand,” what I really meant was: “I’m going to live.”
I began to move forward as the young runner broke the surface by pushing his feet through the ice. I thought he was knee-deep in the water, but he was actually up to his chest when I began to take large steps and break the ice immediately in front of me. Suddenly, there was a narrow pathway carved through the ice, leading to shore. I reached for him and, together, we made it up the bank and out.
I sat on the ground shivering, soaked and frozen, my knees nearly pulled toward my chest, my heart pumping wildly. As I was catching my breath, I recall saying: “Thanks. Thanks a lot. You really helped me out.”
“What were you doing in there?” he asked. He still seemed a little uncertain about what had just transpired.
“My . . . my dog. She fell in. I had to go get her out.”
“You want me to call 911 for you?” he asked.
“I’m just frozen. I just need to thaw out. I’ll be all right. Can you check on me on your way back?”
He said he was going toward Georgetown, meaning I would not see him again. I knew there was a bathroom at Fletcher’s Cove, where daytime visitors can rent boats and kayaks on the adjacent Potomac River. If it was open, I told him, I would warm up in there. If I felt dizzy or in trouble, I could cross the wooden bridge there and walk up to Canal Road and flag down a car for help.
“You sure?” he asked.
“Yeah, yeah.”
His body was soaked and cold, and he wanted to stay warm by continuing his run. As he sped off, I yelled: “Hey, wait. What’s your name?”
“Jason,” he said. “Jason Coates.”
“Where do you work?”
“I’m a law student at GW.”

The GW Hatchet story has this quote from Wise: “I’ll let Jason represent me when he becomes a lawyer. I figure if he saved my butt once, then he can save me in court.”
Congratulations, Jason Coates. You may have guaranteed future employment. Especially if Wise takes a job with the Philadelphia Inquirer.
For the Love of Dog [The Washington Post]
Icy intervention [GW Hatchet]

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