COEUR d'ALENE - Shoshone County Sheriff's Office deputy J.D. Allen got punched in the face by a drunk at the beach Tuesday night.

Allen, who was off-duty, pulled an "extremely intoxicated" man from Lake Coeur d'Alene in Harrison after the man had been struggling in the water while swimming.

"Yeah, I'm proud of him," Shoshone County Sheriff Mitch Alexander said Wednesday. "From what I hear he probably saved the guy's life."

And the punch?

"He's from the (Silver) Valley, he's tough," Alexander said. "In our line of work, dealing with drunks - it happens frequently."

According to an incident report produced by a Kootenai County Sheriff's Office deputy, the intoxicated man was staying in the area with co-workers as part of a company retreat.

A group of co-workers had taken a boat to One Shot Charlie's, arriving around 4 p.m.

A co-worker told the sheriff's office that the intoxicated man "had consumed at least five double shots of whiskey while they were at the bar," in an approximately two-hour period.

The man left the bar, and one witness said he ran from a beach area straight into the water.

Witnesses said he was "struggling to swim to the floating dock near the beach," the incident report said. His head began to "bob up and down."

Allen, 26, said Wednesday he heard some of the man's co-workers saying they needed to keep an eye on him because he might drown.

"He bobbed under the third time and my wife said, 'You better go get him,'" Allen recalled.

He jumped in and swam about 30 feet to reach the man, where the water was 10- to 20-feet deep. He pulled him to a swimming platform.

The man, who had been coughing and choking, then became "combative" and hit Allen, the report said.

Allen said the man was slurring his words, foaming at the mouth and cried some.

"Nothing made sense what he was saying," he said.

The man was taken to Kootenai Health, and Allen declined to press charges.

"Heavy alcohol mixed with water isn't a good idea," he said. At least not without a life jacket.