Humble hero, 9: boy honored for saving brother from drowning
Published: January 22, 2007
The shiny new medal was nice. So was the wooden plaque inscribed with a treatise on heroism.
And Robert Richter, 9, may never meet another Scout with a square ‘‘knot’’ patch like the one he received last night.
The entire Cub Scout Pack 33 cheered and whooped at the pack meeting. Grown-ups wearing suits shook his hand. During two standing ovations, Robert smiled and looked at his shoes.
The real prize was the one he pulled out of the water. That was at White Island Pond in Wareham on a muggy day in July, the day his 5-year-old brother Johnny disappeared.
His mother was at work. On the shore, his grandmother’s boyfriend, Jerry Patrick, was working on his boat’s engine.
Robert was the first to notice that Johnny, who moments earlier was prowling around with his fingers arched like claws, was gone. Robert and his cousins, who were lying flat on a floating trampoline in the water, frantically looked around.
Had he gone to shore? Maybe he had an episode. Johnny, who has muscular dystrophy and seizure disorder, has had them before. Robert had seen it.
‘‘I heard something under the trampoline,’’ Robert said.
Then, movement from underneath. Without hesitation, Robert dived again and again. Plunging down a fourth time, he saw a hand and came up with Johnny’s limp body, and carried him 100 feet to shore.
What Patrick remembered most were Johnny’s eyes, vacant and staring upward. He wasn’t breathing, so Patrick gave him CPR.
‘‘Two breaths and he came right to,’’ Patrick said. ‘‘I was so scared. Thank God (Robert) noticed.’’
The whole ordeal was over as fast as it had begun.
‘‘I’m very proud of him,’’ his mother Brigit Collins said. ‘‘It was the scariest thing that ever happened to me.’’
Collins, Patrick, Johnny and other relatives were at Kingston Elementary School yesterday, as guest speakers stepped up one by one to congratulate Robert for his quick thinking and his bravery.
‘‘Investment in our youth pays off,’’ said Jim Higgins, president of the Old Colony Council, the regional chapter of the Cub Scouts. ‘‘This is a great example of that.’’
State Rep. Tom Calter presented Robert with the plaque and applauded him for looking out for Johnny.
‘‘You’re my hero, so it’s great to meet you,’’ Calter said.
Presenting Robert with the square patch, one of only two of its kind a young Scout can earn, Cub Scout official Paul Gendreau told him the badge will get him attention.
‘‘You can say, ‘I was smart, I kept my head and, when something went wrong, helped save a life,’’’ Gendreau told him.
After the ceremony, while the rest of the group sang ‘‘On Top of Spaghetti,’’ lines formed to congratulate Robert and compliment him on his new badge.
Robert just smiled and looked at his shoes.
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