Staff Sgt. Timothy Hansen of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, saved an autistic teenage boy who was losing his fight against a strong current in the Red River on Sunday, according to a news report.
The boy’s family is calling the soldier ”our hero,” Fox News reported.
The boy’s mother, Martie Weeks, said they were on a tubing trip on the river, along with two other sons and some friends. They came upon a tree that had fallen, and the tree and the rocks below created a strong current.
The teen, Ronnie Harris, 17, was knocked over by the current and tried to stand and keep his head above water but couldn’t. His mother tried to reach him, watching as he lost the ability to struggle and floated face down in the water.
“I just kept praying, ‘God please don’t take this child from me, please, somebody hear me,’ ” she told FOX17.
On the shore, Hansen saw what was happening.
”I dropped my phone and everything I had in my hands and I took off running to go help,” said Hansen, whose 10 years in the Army includes deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hansen pulled Harris from the water and performed chest compressions until the boy was spitting out river water and breathing.
“I started moving back toward the shore and that's when I saw his face, and he was spitting up a lot of water and I was like, 'at least he's breathing, that's good,' " Hansen said in the report.
Then the soldier was able to reach Weeks, and helped her and her son get to land.
Hansen’s actions gave Weeks a ”renewed sense of humanity,” she said.
“There were other people in the water in kayaks who just watched, taking out their phones and recording it all,” Weeks said in the news report. ”They didn‘t help, but he did.”
She said Hansen is ”our hero.”
”That’s not an easy title to earn,” Hansen said. “I’m just glad I could help.”
