Boy Scouts Return to Scene of River Rescue
Published: April 2, 2007
On Saturday afternoon, police say 22-year old Eric Dufresne of Wrightstown was on a friend’s fishing boat with his 14-year old cousin.
Since the rescue, both have been treated at the hospital and released.
Their parents told officers that the two are always together, almost like brothers.
Brown County rescue crews say the boat they were in capsized around 1 p.m. Saturday near the Little Rapids Dam, just north of Wrightstown.
A group of Boy Scouts, who happened to be nearby, heard the pair yelling from the river.
The Scouts called for help and tried to rescue them.
Later, rescue crews put a boat in the water and pulled the cousins out.
On Sunday afternoon, the Boy Scouts and their parents went back to the scene of the rescue.
They say there is plenty of credit to go around for saving the two cousins.
Police say Dufresne and his younger cousin had been trapped in 44-degree water, when their boat capsized going over the dam.
The Boy Scouts and their parents became, what officials say, was the only chance the two young fishermen had of survival.
“I was amazed by just not knowing,” said Pat Hopkins, a parent of one of the boys.
“Most of the kids had never been in a situation like that before, and they were so level-headed. It was really surprising.”
The Scouts and their parents pondered what happened, and what could have been.
“You can hear the rapids back here,” Hopkins said. “They would not have been heard when they’re yelling for help. We could barely hear them from the shore here.”
While they watched emergency officials speed out to help the boaters, the Scouts and their parents say they saw a heroic action.
“The older kid, he put the younger guy up on the peak of the boat and stayed in the water,” said Tim Lewis, another parent.
“Even when the fire department rescued him, he wanted them to take the kid first.”
“My reaction was ‘wow that takes guts, cause he’s in the freezing water and pushing downward so the kid can stay up in the air,’” said Boy Scout Ryan Lewis.
It was a day when they couldn’t learn from books or the classroom.
“We’re trying to teach them character, and they all grew up quite a bit yesterday,” Tim Lewis 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: