Life saver at the age of 88: How Franz Gregori pulled his angler friend out of Lake Ammer

Created: 04/23/2022, 07:23

By: Catherine Brack

Rescuer and rescued: Franz Gregori (left) helped his angler friend Elmar Wilhelm in dire need.

© EMANUEL GRONAU

When Franz Gregori saw that an angler friend had fallen out of his boat, he didn't hesitate: the then 88-year-old pulled him out of Lake Ammer.

Munich/Pähl - The conditions were ideal for fishing: sunny and windless, if a bit cool.

May 14, 2021 was a glorious spring day.

Elmar Wilhelm, then 82 years old, made his way to the Ammersee early on.

At around 7 a.m. he rowed out onto the lake, anchored and threw out his line.

A whitefish bit.

The senior, who lives in the Pähler district of Fischen (Weilheim-Schongau district), was on the water for about an hour and a half when he suddenly fell out of his boat.

"It's still a mystery to me how that happened," he says.

Elmar Wilhelm found himself in the water, which was ten degrees cold that day.

Despite several attempts, he did not make it back into the boat.

"I wouldn't be here today if Franz hadn't saved me," he says.

Franz Gregori is a friend of mine who is an angler from Pähl, the two men's rowing boats are next to each other in Lake Ammer, they know each other.

Gregori, then 88, also wanted to use the morning to go fishing.

"I was a little later than usual," he recalls.

He got his boat ready and packed bait, then he too rowed out onto the lake.

Angler rescued from Lake Ammer: "Thank God he saw that the boat was empty"

He was still about 150 meters away from Elmar Wilhelm's boat when he noticed that nobody was sitting in it.

So he rowed to his friend.

"Thank God he saw that the boat was empty," says Wilhelm.

"I called for help, but Franz doesn't hear very well." When he got to the victim, Gregori quickly realized that he couldn't pull him into the boat.

"We would have both fallen into the water.

So I said to him: Hang onto my boat and I'll row you to shore!"

The two men were about 400 meters from the jetty.

"I kept telling him: 'Hold on tight!'" the rescuer recalls.

And while Elmar Wilhelm clung to the small rowing boat with all his might, Franz Gregori rowed as fast as he could.

Nevertheless, they needed a little more than 20 minutes until they finally reached the safe bank.

"It shouldn't have lasted much longer," says Elmar Wilhelm.

The rescue service, which a few young people on the shore had already alerted, measured a body temperature of 34 degrees in the senior.

Senior rescues an angler friend from the Ammersee: honor for Franz Gregori from Pähl

And while the exhausted and hypothermic fisherman was taken to the Herrsching hospital, Franz Gregori rowed out onto Lake Ammer once more.

He towed Elmar Wilhelm's rowing boat to shore.

The rescue workers asked him if they shouldn't take him to the hospital too.

But Franz Gregori waved it off and drove home to Pähl.

He was completely knocked out, his wife remembers.

Elmar Wilhelm, who was allowed to leave the hospital after a short stay in intensive care, wanted his rescuer to be rewarded for his selfless act.

"He saved my life.

Someone has to do something.” So he reported to Pähl's mayor, Werner Grünbauer.

And Franz Gregori is indeed being honored as a rescuer at the age of 89: with the "Public Recognition for a Rescue Action".

In the laudatory speech by District President Konrad Schober it said: "Your courageous and prudent action saved the life of this angler."