From The Austin American Statesman:
Regan Hunt earns Scouting’s highest lifesaving honor
That Thursday in July 2007 was a hot one, and so when the temperatures finally died down in the late afternoon, Regan Hunt, who hails from West Lake Hills , and his new freshman friends at Brigham Young University-Idaho headed out of Rexburg to Monkey Rock , their favorite swimming hole.
Thursday evening was as good as Friday night because they had no more classes before the weekend, so the idea was to dance, build a bonfire and cool down in the water. They rolled down their car windows, turned their stereos up and sat on the soft sand amid the rocky beach.
But about 8 p.m., commotion broke: Some other students were stuck in a whirlpool in a nearby canal and couldn’t get out. During a few minutes that left most people agape, Hunt found himself slinging a makeshift lifeline into the water — a beaten-up blue, white and green comforter — to try to save his close friends.
Hunt wound up rescuing five people and trying his hardest to save a sixth. Today, in honor of his quick thinking under pressure, Hunt, an Eagle Scout, will receive Scouting’s highest lifesaving honor.
The Cross Cut Canal runs from the Snake River to the Teton River. The spot where the canal falls at least 10 feet into the Teton is one of the favored swimming holes near Rexburg, a town of about 27,500 .
But just before the Cross Cut, which is 15 feet wide in some places, spills into the Teton, it narrows and grows shallow against a paved bank, leading to turbulence beneath the surface.
“There’s a horrible hydraulic effect there,” Brett Mackert, the commander of the Freemont County search-and-rescue team, said.
Logan Gerratt, Parker Bradford and Hunt called themselves the three musketeers, so close had they grown in only 10 days. The son of an American pharmaceutical executive working in Europe, Bradford had grown up in France and wanted advice from Gerratt in the American ways of wooing a girl.
The pair had wandered away from Monkey Rock and waded into the still water of the canal, downstream of the whirlpool. But as they chatted, Bradford slipped and was pulled down by an undertow. Gerratt dived in to save him.
Bradford was flushed out, but not Gerratt. Shouting, Bradford organized some people nearby to form a human chain to pull out Gerratt. But one by one, all of them, including Bradford, were sucked into the whirlpool.
Hunt, who is now 19, came over to the canal just as the members of the human chain were sucked under. He marched to his truck, about 50 yards away, and grabbed just about the first thing he saw — the old quilt that his passengers use to keep warm when they have to ride in the bed of his three-seater.
He’s 6 feet 7 inches and wears size 17 football cleats . A trained lifeguard, he swam long-distance for Westlake High School. His 20-odd merit badges for Scouting include one for first aid.
He cast the comforter into the water, one kid grabbed a corner and Hunt pulled him to safety. Then a second boy latched on and made his way out of the water; then a third; and then a fourth.
But two others — Bradford and Gerratt — still swirled in the churning water, floating in and out of consciousness.
Hunt ran to his truck and dug out some tie-downs. He wrapped one end of a tie-down to a guardrail on a bridge over the whirlpool and the other to his wrist, then lowered himself into the water.
He grabbed Bradford twice, once by his swim trunks, but each time he slipped away. At one point he managed to hold Bradford and Gerratt at the same time, but they both went back under.
“I felt Bradford try to hold on, but it wasn’t for long,” Hunt said.
Finally, he slipped further into the water, flushing Gerratt and Bradford into the quieter water. They floated down the canal and over the waterfall.
Another boy helped pull up Hunt. He had broken the wrist around which he wrapped the tie-down. He gathered his energy and hustled toward the swimming hole, just below the waterfall. Bradford and Gerratt had washed ashore.
One boy performed CPR on Gerratt, who choked and threw up water as paramedics arrived. Hunt performed CPR on Bradford, a teen with whom he says he had become “inseparable.” Bradford was bleeding from his face, where he had been battered by rocks after the waterfall. When the paramedics took him away, he had not been revived. A couple of days later, with no brain activity and on life support, he died in the hospital.
The whole episode, from the forming of the human chain to the CPR, had taken about 10 minutes.
This afternoon, in a ceremony at the Mormon church that sponsors his troop, Hunt will receive the Honor Medal with Crossed Palms, which fewer than 250 Scouts have received since the Boy Scouts of America began presenting the award in 1923.
RECIEVING RANK: David Abbott awarding the rank of Eagle to Corey Barnum.
Boy scouts show off their badges as they attend a camp as part of the 21st World Scout Jamboree in Hong Kong’s rural Sai Kung district July 30, 2007 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of scouting, which falls on August 1. REUTERS/Bobby Yip (CHINA)
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