Gary Lane Parker rescued Gerry D. Smith while he was in a runaway motorboat, Killeen, Texas, March 26, 1978. When his parents and younger brother were thrown out of an outboard motorboat and into deep water in a reservoir, Gerry, 19 months, was left alone in the runaway craft, which made erratic circles taking it ever nearer a rocky cliff. Parker, 25, automobile mechanic, entered a boat, which then was piloted, on the same circular course by an Army captain and from which vain efforts were made to snag the runaway with a rope. Parker then moved onto the bow of the captain’s craft and, when the two boats were parallel, leaped across the gap between them and grasped the railing of the runaway. Climbing into the runaway boat as it continued circling, Parker stopped the craft before any harm came to Gerry.
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