last night district one officers sean lesson jack and paul bjorquist were flagged down right here at this location to northwater street and state street by a man who was reporting that a intoxicated woman had fallen into the milwaukee river officers alexandra ayala quickly joined the officers and they came to this location right behind us and looking down into the river they could see a woman holding on to a metal ladder that extended from the side of the pier into the river officers lesson jack and ayala climbed down the ladder and entered the water alongside the woman in an attempt to extract her while holding her head above water officer bjorkqvist also joined them trying to hold his two partners up who were trying to hold the woman the one the officers were unable to lift her out of the water at that time as the water continued to rise and she lost consciousness officers lesson jack and ayala held her head above water while they awaited the arrival of the milwaukee fire department sergeant daniel daniel javit and officer cory crows also crossed over the safety rail behind us in order to join in attempts to hold the two officers in the water and the woman in the water hold them up above the rising tide level and and await further assistance officers lesson jack and ayala were in the water for a total of 17 minutes upon the arrival of the milwaukee fire department the milwaukee fire department was able to extend a ladder into the water which the officers were able to grasp and pull themselves and the woman out of the water it was a remarkably courageous act on their part you saw the shape of the river last night it was a torrential rain and the river itself was a torrent the woman was as i say intoxicated and then unconscious so she was essentially dead weight as they tried to hold on to her fighting the current fighting the weight of gravity fighting the pull of the water and awaiting assistance we're very proud of their work and we commend their efforts to you today i also want to use this moment to make a couple of announcements that you may want to pass on to your news anchors tonight obviously i'm grateful for the great cooperation last night between the police department and the fire department last night we had 453 calls for weather-related assignments between 5 pm and midnight we had 34 crimes overnight which is about half the average of what we normally have on another note we're asking people to please avoid the following locations we're getting a lot of tourists they're putting themselves at risks and they're inadvertently interfering with our recovery efforts we're asking people to stay away from the area of sherman and congress there's a car in the creek there a large number of onlookers are in the area and it's consuming our resources to keep them from falling into the river so please avoid that location secondly we're asking people to please avoid the area of 19th and eggert the basements of several homes collapsed at that location it's a mess but we need maximum room to do again recovery efforts the cars and the crowds do not help us finally the sinkhole that oakland at north that we all know so much about there have been a large number of onlookers there i would please ask you all to have them watch your fine television stations the view is much better on your tv station you've got much better camera angles please tell them to stay away from the location again they're interfering with an extraordinary amount of work that's got to be done there between the fire department dpw primarily we energies plus the police department is doing crowd and traffic controls so um i'm comfortable plugging all of your channels i'll do them individually if you want chief lin says watch channel fill in the blank uh but we would really appreciate if those three locations would be shared with your viewers and ask them to ask them to stay away now what we can do now and i don't want to do your job for you but i mean i suspect you'd rather just talk to the officers individually rather than me field questions so why don't we do that and uh and you can you know you can decide how to make use of them i'll introduce them again this is sergeants david officer crows officer bjorquist officer ayala uh and officer lesnerjack and they are the ones who were involved in the in the in the event last night ayala unless the track were in the water right officer voroquist this sounds a little bit like a dr seuss thing officer boroquez was pulling the two of them up and officer crow and sergeant ayala came and also claimed over the fence in order to stabilize officer vorquest stabilizing them interesting a little bit of business we don't know which tour boat but one of them last night provided some life jackets that we were able to put on the people on the water which certainly aided our efforts we thanked them but i don't know who they were and as i say the fire department ultimately came with a ladder that they were able to climb up out of so officer ayala if you could tell us what it was like in the water step up to the microphone um well the current was picking up after we were in the water it was uh it was very hard and it was trying to push us under the the walkway um obviously we're trying to keep up float try to get the victim up floating and that was the main priority also uh my partner in the water too uh that was a priority of mine it was it was scary uh but that was our that's our duty that's what we do obviously if you could step up and you could tell us you know you're you're saving a woman who's intoxicated basically as the chief said dead weight what is that like to try and support her while you're trying to keep yourself afloat it was extremely difficult the level of water rose to a level where we only had about one rung left on the ladder and uh off the pier behind me she was going in and out of consciousness she started holding onto the ladders or letting go um at times the current would pick up it was very very difficult to to hold her weight up um officer alley assisted me greatly when he got in the water we were both able to kind of create a circle around her and hold her up against the ladder until more helped arrive your quest your question how long were you supporting i'm going to estimate that it was some somewhere around 15 minutes to about 17 minutes they both had when they both went in the water they both had a pretty good hold on her and even though she was going in and out of consciousness i was really uh i was concerned for their safety but i was also pretty sure we were going to get her out of the water my concern was getting them out of the water safely also i could see that it was very uh exhausting for both of them because the current was quite strong last night in fact it was very strong last night so i was very worried for their safety also officer you can talk about were you concerned at any point that you were going to lose everybody here and you guys were supporting their efforts i the current was pretty strong and at times it seemed the river was rising while my fellow officers were holding on to this lady um and it got tense at a few moments as the river picked up speed and you could feel the river pull against the rope and they were fighting to keep her afloat sergeant if we could have you step up and uh you know obviously we had a successful situation successful outcome here um just your thoughts about how uh what a crazy night it was for you guys it was very crazy with the amount of rain and all the situations happening i'm very proud of the officers they did a fantastic job citizens that helped us the milwaukee fire department we're all alive to talk about it and very proud