Like many soldiers in his situation, Pfc. Nathan Currie credited his Army training for informing his actions when he saved a woman from drowning last month at Fort Stewart, Georgia.
But few Army courses deal directly with diving into an alligator- and snake-infested pond to fish a stranger out of a sedan. That's exactly what Currie, 28, did, interrupting his first fishing trip to Holbrook Pond after hearing a car splash into the water, according to an Army news release.
Currie, with 756th Explosive Ordnance Company, 63rd EOD Battalion, 52nd EOD Group, felt a body in the back seat of the car on his first dive, then went down again to retrieve the woman, according to the Tuesday release from 20th Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosives Command, his unit's parent outfit.
He revived the woman with CPR while another soldier, Command Sgt. Maj. Wylie Hutchinson of the 188th Infantry Brigade, made three dives into the water to check for other trapped passengers. He found none.
Requests made to Fort Stewart public affairs officials for details on the incident — including how the car got into the water — were not answered as of press time. The condition of the woman was not immediately available.
"As an EOD soldier, we are trained to operate in a high op tempo, which requires us to operate calmly under stress," Currie said in a separate release, this one from the 188th. "I am not a hero, I just did what I thought was necessary."
Hutchinson had a similar reaction.
"I saw someone who needed help," he said in the release. "I didn't think, I just wanted to get the person out of the car."
