Joseph P. Shuda, 15, schoolboy, saved Roger D. Griffis, 15, schoolboy, from drowning, Sheldon, Wisconsin, May 31, 1942. While swimming at the mouth of a cove in the Jump River, Griffis got into a very swift current and drifted to a concrete pier that rose two feet above the water 70 feet from the bank of the river. By putting his fingers in a crack in the pier he held to it but could not get on it. He became nearly exhausted. From the mouth of the cove Shuda tried to swim to the pier; but noting that he would drift past it into wreckage of the bridge that had been washed from the pier, he swam back to the bank. He then ran to a point farther upstream from the cove, entered the water, and swam and drifted 160 feet to the pointed end of the pier. While the current pressed him against the pier and he held to it with one hand, he took hold of Griffis and gradually pulled him close to his own position. He helped Griffis to climb on the top of the pier, and then he climbed on it. Three hours later a log to which ropes were attached was floated to the pier. One rope was made fast to the pier and at the bank; and the boys, each having another rope tied around himself, the other ends of which were held by men on the bank, worked their way to the bank. 39759-3311
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39759-3311