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Kootenai deputies are lifesavers

Deputies Mike Douglass, center, and Chuck Sciortino, right, are honored with lifesaving awards from Sheriff Rocky Watson on Wednesday afternoon at the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office in Coeur d'Alene. Douglass and Sciortino responded to the scene where a woman had slashed her own throat, helping her breath until medical help arrived. (Jesse Tinsley / The Spokesman-Review)
Taryn Brodwater Staff writer
Deputies Mike Douglass, center, and Chuck Sciortino, right, are honored with lifesaving awards from Sheriff Rocky Watson on Wednesday afternoon at the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office in Coeur d'Alene. Douglass and Sciortino responded to the scene where a woman had slashed her own throat, helping her breath until medical help arrived. (Jesse Tinsley / The Spokesman-Review)

Kootenai County sheriff’s deputies don’t usually ride in two-man teams.

It was just chance that deputies Chuck Sciortino and Mike Douglass were together one afternoon in April, when a call came in that changed both their lives and saved that of a local woman. They were riding together because Douglass’ patrol car was in the shop.

The woman had attempted suicide by slashing her throat with a razor, severing her trachea in two places.

As he presented the deputies with awards Wednesday for saving the woman’s life, Sheriff Rocky Watson said that without the deputies’ quick thinking, she likely would have died.

“We were just in the right place at the right time,” said Sciortino, a 35-year-old who began working for the sheriff’s department six months ago. “I don’t know if either one of us would have been able to accomplish this task on our own.”

Douglass, 52, said the woman was having trouble breathing because the trachea was collapsing on itself, and he pinched it to keep it open.

The former military policeman said he believed the CPR and first-aid training he’d received in the military “kicked into action” that day.

“That is just secondary,” Douglass said of the award. He tapped his fingers on his chest. “It’s what’s inside that counts. I just wanted her to live. I told her, ‘Not on my watch.’”

He said Sciortino was behind him the whole time.

“He was right there,” Douglass said. “He gave me moral support and was encouraging me.”

Sciortino said he helped hold the woman’s arms down as she struggled. He said the woman lived because of Douglass’ actions.

“His hands just did the right things,” Sciortino said. “He wasn’t shaking. He wasn’t nervous.”

Both men said Wednesday it was the first time they’d been honored for saving someone’s life.

Sciortino, who formerly worked for the Riverside, Calif., Police Department, said he appreciated that Kootenai County honors officers for their lifesaving work. He said he knows of many officers in other departments who have saved lives and not been recognized.

“As law enforcement officers, we don’t just arrest people,” Sciortino said. “I hate to use the saying ‘to serve and protect,’ but we do.”