Robert Frank Derfler saved Polly S. Cummings and helped to save Michael P. Cummings, Jr., from drowning, Nags Head, North Carolina, July 8, 1978. At a beach on the Atlantic Ocean, Mrs. Cummings, 60, and her husband, 61, were carried seaward by a current against which they could make no progress. Derfler, 31, investigator, swam to Mrs. Cummings with an inflated raft, by means of which he took her to safety. He then went to Cummings, who was still drifting. Derfler was too tired to return Cummings to shore. They drifted on the raft until picked up by the Coast Guard.
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