Paul P. Rudy, Jr., 26, teacher, saved Charles L. McDonald, 12, schoolboy, and Roy McDonald, 37, bulldozer operator, from drowning, Fort Ross, California, October 12, 1959. When their motorboat capsized in rough water in the Pacific Ocean 150 feet from a high cliff along the shore, McDonald and his son, Charles, who could not swim, clung to the overturned craft in water 15 feet deep and called for help. Another man with them attempted to swim to shore but was drowned. Boys from a school in the vicinity reported the accident to Rudy, who launched an eight foot dinghy from a cove far from the overturned boat. Rudy rowed the small craft, which was made of canvas over a wooden frame, through a line of breakers and into choppy open water where white capped swells were six feet high. When one oarlock pulled loose, Rudy continued rowing with increasing difficulty, following a channel between projecting rocks. Thinking he might be thrown into the water, he removed his boots. After rowing 3,000 feet, Rudy reached the McDonalds, who were in a state of semi-shock. Charles also was entangled in a fishing line caught on submerged rocks. Rudy cut the line and pulled Charles aboard the dinghy, which was tossed about by swirling water from seven foot waves crashing against nearby rocks. Rudy then pulled McDonald aboard but was unable to get his legs into the craft. The dinghy then had freeboard of only four inches. Because the shoreline except at the cove was too rocky and precipitous to permit landing, Rudy rowed back over the course he had come. He experienced much difficulty due to the uneven distribution of weight of the three persons in the boat, which shipped water and once nearly was capsized. Although the wind tended to propel the craft toward rocks at the entrance to the cove, Rudy maneuvered the dinghy into it and then rowed to wadable water, from where others pulled the craft to the beach. McDonald and Charles recovered. 44877-4318
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44877-4318