20 October 2008
4 x 4 Lifesaving
Posted by admin under: recognition .
Jo Mathis at the Ann Arbor News has an in-depth story of four Boy Scouts who saved a family of four in August. The boys were training; the family was rafting. All of them got caught in a storm, but the family, three of whom couldn’t swim, were flipped by a big rock.
On Aug. 2, Ryan Hibbs, 15, Reggie Thornton, 14, Ray Batra, 15, and Peter Zekany, 14, were participating in a whitewater kayak clinic on the final day of a two-week troop camping trip.
The boys were paddling the Middle Youghiogheny River in southeastern Pennsylvania when the area was hit by a sudden storm with gusting wind, horizontal upstream rain, and hail, Geier said.
As the Scouts were paddling the last rapid down to the takeout, they were near a family of four on a self-guided float down the river in an inflatable raft.
The family lost control of the raft in the storm and hit a large rock, flipping the raft and pinning them in the undercut.
Hibbs led the effort, rescuing the father, who told the Scouts that none of the family members knew how to swim, and urged them to rescue his wife and children. Hibbs had the father grab Zekany’s boat so that he could assist the rest of the family.
Thornton and Batra rescued the two children. Together with Zekany, they towed the victims to shore through the rapid and downriver to the takeout area about 300 yards downstream and across the current.
…
Paddling upstream, Geier found the mother who had been swept free of the pinned raft, and washed near enough to shore by the current to be rescued by cyclists who had responded to her shouts for help.
The boys are waiting to hear if they will receive the National Award for Heroism from the Boy Scouts of America. Sounds like a shoo-in to me.
- Singer Saves Horn
- Tractor Almost Kills Dad – Boy Scout Sons Save Him
- BSA Brothers Save Each Other, Family
- Daisy Rescues Drowning Infant
- Niles Swim Saves
