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Oct. 16--At least a dozen police officers and firefighters worked Sunday afternoon to get a man to come out of the Columbia River at Vancouver Landing.
It took a three firefighters in the water and a fire rescue boat to finally get the man out of the river shortly after 3 p.m.
The man, who police said was born in 1965, was standing river waist deep in the river with his head down. He was about 15 feet from the shore and 40 feet from the dock near the Red Lion Hotel at the Quay.
Starting at about 2:20 p.m., Vancouver police Cpl. Greg Zimmerman began urging the man to come out of river.
"Mark, can you hear me?" Zimmerman called to the man, who did not respond. "We can't leave you here."
After efforts failed to get the man to come out of the river, firefighters in rescue gear brought him the strip of shoreline. Then, a fire rescue boat brought him to the dock, where an American Medical Response team took the man to an area hospital. No one seemed to know what caused the man's actions.
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