TWIN FALLS - Dennis Bohrn paddled hard across the Snake River to get a suicide victim's body to land.

When he and three others paddling canoes Sunday morning dragged the woman's body, they were stunned and crying - had she jumped? Had she been pushed? Had she slipped? And they were even more stunned when at the shore a deputy cited them twice for not carrying life vests in either canoe.

"The body was right there," said Bohrn, 58, of Twin Falls. "A girl deputy was trying to console everybody. Then a sergeant walked up. He said, 'I see you don't have any life jackets so I am going to give you a citation'. It seemed a little cold."

The fine for each citation is $85.

Most of the deputies who arrived on the scene huddled around the four people, treating them as heroes and victims. But the longer Bohrn dwelled on the actions of one, the more frustrated he became.

Bohrn thinks he may have a legal case. Inflatable cushions carried in the canoe should count for something, he said. On the other hand, there were no life jackets.

What Bohrn wants is compassion, sensitivity. He wants to know why a deputy's first choice of reaction was to enforce a citation rather than comfort a grieving group of people.

The sheriff stands by his deputy's conduct.

"(Not carrying life vests) is against the law and the deputy is doing his job," said Twin Falls County Sheriff Wayne Tousley. "Just because somebody helps you in one incident doesn't mean you can't take care of the other incident. Is it wrong? No, it's not wrong. Could it have been done at another time? He had a discretion."

Several deputies responded, Bohrn said. Other deputies and the paramedics "were awesome," Borhn said, offering emotional support and recommending counseling.

The boaters who launched from the Centennial Park boat ramp to Shoshone Falls had scarcely begun their Sunday morning voyage when one of them saw the woman's body fall and splash 100 feet away.

Above on the bridge, a Twin Falls police officer had stopped his patrol car beside the woman, who had already climbed over the ledge. When the woman's eyes met his eyes, she jumped, Tousley said.

As they dragged the body ashore, one of the two women began sobbing. Bohrn noticed a wedding ring on the victim's finger. A second man held onto the woman's body under the water as the rest paddled and held the canoes together. When they reached the shore, a second woman began to cry.

Fifteen minutes later, deputies and paramedics arrived.

"The feelings don't hit you until it's all done," Bohrn said. "For my girlfriend, at 3 o'clock in the morning she called me crying. Amber was sobbing all the way through it. Mike and I, we were just being guys. It was something that didn't hit me until later."

Bohrn eventually began to recall the woman's face, how they covered it with a T-shirt because her eyes kept open. Borhn now plans to contest the citations in court.

"Maybe you get kind of cold in that job," Bohrn said. "I think there is a time and a place. They should use common sense. Maybe his superiors could tell him, 'Next time, wait until they get to the dock and the girls aren't crying.'

"He hasn't heard the last of me," Bohrn said.

Cassidy Friedman covers crime and courts for the Times-News. He can be reached at (208)735-3241 or by e-mail at cfriedman@magicvalley.com.