Life-saving youths shrug off hero label
Published: June 9, 2006
Four Harrison Park Middle School students are shying away from being called heroes, saying they didn’t do anything extraordinary when they pulled a man suffering from hypothermia from a West Side creek.
That kind of humility is what makes them special, fire officials said of the boys.
Grand Rapids Fire Inspector Pablo Martinez and Chief John Van Solkema were to present the sixth-graders with the Citizens Valor Award today at a ceremony at their school, 1440 Davis Ave. NW.
“We wanted to recognize the boys in front of their peers and in front of the important adults, the teachers and staff, so we can get the larger message to other students to do what’s right and be aware of what’s going on,” said Deputy Fire Chief Gary Szotko.
Their rescue of a stranger occurred March 29 when friends Drew DiPiazza, 13, Roberto Reyes, 12, Joshua Sauceda, 12, and Alejandro “Alex” Valdez, 12, all West Siders, rode their bikes on the trails behind Richmond Park toward Indian Mill Creek.
They saw an overturned bike near the edge of the creek. Joshua discovered a 51-year-old man disoriented, shivering and slumped in the cold water near a small dam.
He smelled of alcohol, authorities reported, saying most people would have kept going. But the boys heard the man asking for help. They grabbed his wet clothes and started tugging him to shore.
“It took all four of us. He was kinda heavy, but he was in trouble,” Alejandro said. They kept pulling until he was out of the water.
Then Alejandro and Drew biked a quarter-mile to Richmond Park, where they found a coach on a baseball field and asked him to call for help.
The coach called for an ambulance, and the two boys waited to accompany rescue workers while Joshua and Roberto stayed with the man.
Martinez said firefighters had to cut through gates so an ambulance crew could reach the man, who suffered from acute hypothermia.
Joshua downplays his role, saying he doesn’t remember much. Alejandro never told his parents. They learned of his actions two weeks later when Martinez told them of the boys’ good work.
“When I talked to the boys, they acted like it was just an average day, like it was nothing, which is typical of heroes,” said Martinez, part of the fire department’s awards team. “They said anybody would have done it, but that’s not true,”
The boys, the youngest recipients of the department’s 3-year-old recognition program, are embarrassed by the attention.
“It’s weird everyone calling us heroes. I’d like to just stay the same,” Joshua said.
He said the boys saw the man on the street three days later. “He didn’t recognize us, he didn’t know what was going on that day,” Alejandro said.
The man’s brother since has moved him to Ohio, Martinez said.
During their school assembly today, the fire chief was to present them with a letter of commendation and a stick pin in the shape of the state of Michigan. A Maltese cross is emblazoned where Grand Rapids is situated.
“There are few acts that weigh more than the feat of helping save a person’s life,” Szotko said.
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: