Kevin John Stone saved Kirk B. Dawson from drowning, Platte City, Missouri, June 10, 1984. When the automobile in which he was a passenger was involved in a nighttime accident on an interstate highway, Dawson, his shirt aflame, ran from the car and jumped over a guide rail. He fell into the flooded Platte River and was carried by a swift current to a secure tree branch. Stone, 19, electrician’s assistant, was traveling on the highway; he stopped and heard Dawson screaming for help. Stone tied one end of an electrical cord around his waist and the other end to the guide rail. He jumped into the 35-foot-deep river and swam with the current about 100 feet to Dawson, but the cord was not long enough to permit him to maneuver freely. He removed the cord and discarded it. Arriving firemen floated a line and life jackets to Stone, who tied the line around Dawson. The men pulled Dawson to the bridge and then pulled Stone to safety in a similar fashion. Dawson was hospitalized with second- and third-degree burns; he recovered.
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