Edward D. Harper helped to save George McLaughlin from drowning, Youngstown, Ohio, March 26, 1972. George, 16, high school student, fell into a creek and floundered in the cold water. Harper, 35, employment agency manager, removed his boots and coat and jumped into the creek. He swam to George, who then was 17 feet from the nearest bank and very fatigued. Because the banks in that area afforded no way to get out, Harper towed George 35 feet against the current to where part of a rock ledge rose above the water at midstream. Harper, tired from his efforts, lifted George onto the ledge and then obtained a dead sapling which had become wedged in the rocks of the creek. He extended the sapling from the exposed part of the ledge toward a man standing in thigh-deep water at the bank. While Harper held the sapling on the ledge, George crawled along it to its end, stepped into the swift water, and then was grasped by the man and moved onto the bank. Harper was aided to the bank in a similar manner.
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