(Ripon) A veteran Ripon police officer is being credited with saving the life of a 21-year-old Ripon woman whose SUV was found upside-down in the freezing waters of Silver Creek Saturday morning. Ripon Police Chief Bill Wallner says Officer Trevor Hanke was on patrol when he noticed tire tracks going through a snowbank and down an incline.
Upon further investigation, he saw a vehicle upside down in the creek and a woman, Elizabeth Romo, was clinging to the vehicle in the freezing water. She had crawled out a back window as the vehicle began filling with water. Debris in the creek and the cold conditions prevented her from getting out. Officer Hanke and a bystander were able to get her out. An ambulance took Romo to Ripon Medical Center to be treated for exposure and she made a full recovery.
Chief Wallner says no one else had noticed the tire tracks or SUV in the creek. “She indicated to the officer she had been down there for anywhere between 15 minutes to a half hour and nobody had noticed her up until the point that Officer Hanke had noticed the tracks.”
Romo had lost control on the snow-covered roads while trying to negotiate a curve. Hanke has been with the Ripon Police Department nearly 30 years.
