Robert Lewis Snell, 14, school-boy, saved Carl L. Hakes, 7, from drowning, Hillsgrove, Pennsylvania, March 17, 1948. While playing on a bank of Loyalsock Creek, Carl, who was heavily clothed and could not swim, lost his balance, fell into the creek, and drifted downstream away from the bank in a current of three miles an hour in cold water eight feet deep. Robert, who also wore heavy clothing and who had eaten heavily shortly before, dived from cribbing three feet above the water at the bank and swam 20 feet to Carl. Taking hold of his coat collar, Robert towed him 55 feet with the current to the branch of a tree projecting from the water near the cribbing. Robert grasped the branch, pulled himself to the cribbing, took hold of a plank extended to him by boys on the bank, and brought Carl alongside. Carl and then Robert were pulled onto the bank by a boy whose feet were held by others. Carl was chilled. Robert was winded.
41304 – 3600
41304-3600