What started out as a day of leisure turned into an adrenaline filled rescue effort for a group who was spending time at Myatt Creek, before swift water sucked a child into a culvert underneath a bridge.
According to Randy Young on April 23, a group of friends had gone to the area to go kayaking, however; He and his wife Theresa, his brother-in-law Lee Butler and sister-in-law Jane opted to fish instead of kayak because the wind was high.
A short time later, Young said four boys showed up and went upstream to fish before coming back down to the bridge to swim.
“They were doing okay swimming on the downstream side of the bridge and we didn’t pay a lot of attention thinking they were local boys and had been around low water bridges and understood to stay on that side of the bridge,” Young said.
The day of leisure quickly turned into a life-or-death situation when one of the boys had moved to the other side of the bridge and was pulled into a culvert.
“There was a tree between where I was sitting and where the boy was in the Culvert so at first I wasn’t sure that I was seeing what I thought I saw. I stood up and said is that boy caught in the culvert I walked around the tree and looked,” Young said.
The image of the child who had been sucked under the water with only a small portion of his body visible is an image Young said he will never forget.
“There’s one of the images of the day I’ll never get out of my head. Sure enough the little boy was completely underwater with only his shoulders up sticking out of the culvert. Immediately started yelling for help telling everyone to get over here now,” Young said.
Quickly help arrived as Lee joined Young on the bridge and the two were able to pull the boy’s head above the water but unable to pull him free from the culvert.
“I was telling him to breath as we had his head up because I could feel him slipping back into the culvert. I yelled at his friends again and told them to get over here. One of the older boys, about 17 years old or so got there first and took Lee’s place so he could jump into the water,” Young said.
Butler worked to get in position behind the boy to pull him directly away from the culvert without being pulled in himself.
“Finally, the oldest and biggest of the four boys’, he looked to be in his 20s got to us and asked, ‘what do I do’. I told him to get in the water with Lee and help him divert the water so we could pull the boy free from the Upstream side of the bridge,” Young said.
Young said there was a fourth boy, later discovered to be the older brother of the young boy in the culvert, but he did not ask for his help as he was visibly shaken.
“The oldest boy was able to help Lee and Lee was able to pull the boy free from the culvert and let the river wash his upper body onto the bridge where myself and the second oldest boy were able to grab him,” Young said. “His legs up to his knees once again were sucked into the culvert. I was pulling him as hard as I could and the boy helping me was able to reach to free his legs. Once his legs were free, the boy freeing the legs was starting to be pulled into the culvert.”
Young said his sister Jane was able to help hold the boy in place which freed Young yo grab hold of the teen who was now being pulled into the water.
“Thankfully, he was strong enough to do most of it once he could use me as an anchor,” Young said. “We’d gotten the boy free from the water, but he was blue and unconscious. We pulled him onto the bridge more and rolled him over. He started crying and thankfully we didn’t have to do CPR. I think pulling him across the concrete of the bridge may have helped enough to resuscitate him,” Young said.
Once everyone was out of the water, Young said he told the boys they needed to get to a hospital quickly because the boy was bleeding from his nose.
“I was worried he might have internal injuries from the pressure of the water, us pulling on him and everything he’d just been through,” Young said. “It was a terrifying image it’s stuck in my mind forever.”
The boy was loaded into a vehicle, but he and his friends were not familiar with the area and were not sure where to go.
“They were from Black Rock. I gave them directions to the hospital, and they drove off. That’s the last I’ve seen or heard from them. I would really like to know if the boy is okay and who they are. Lee was more of a hero that day then I because he jumped in the dangerous side of that bridge without hesitation. Everyone played equal parts in saving the boy’s life but there’s no doubt.. He would have drowned if we hadn’t been there,” Young said. “I also want to say I have new respect for firefighters can anyone who deal with this type of situation daily. I am not geared for this type of thing I barely slept at all that night. Thinking back, God was with us. My feet never slipped, even with the water running over the bridge and over my feet.”
Lauren is a an award-winning journalist who decided after 10 years of newspaper experience to venture out. Hallmark Times was born.
