Carnegie Hero Fund President Eric Zahren presented the Carnegie Medal to Albert Evans at a private ceremony held June 25 in Lufkin, Texas.
Evans received the medal in December 2024 after he saved three people from drowning in Merryville, Louisiana, on Aug.26, 2022.
Around sunset, a 27-year-old woman struggled to keep three children, her children, 4 and 6, and her partner’s daughter, 7, afloat when they drifted into deeper water in the Sabine River. Two people in their group responded to the woman’s calls for help and each swam to her and took a child. The three adults and three children were carried downstream. Alerted by calls for help, a 57-year-old man also entered the river to try to intercept some of the victims, but submerged and drowned. Evans, 49, who had been camping with his wife near the scene, heard the calls for help and went down the beach to the water’s edge. By then, the three men and the woman’s son were no longer were in sight, but Evans saw the woman and her daughter. Evans removed his boots and swam out to them, arriving at a place where he could not touch the river’s bottom. With difficulty, Evans swam back toward the beach, pulling and pushing the woman to try to keep her above the surface as she held her daughter. Evans’ wife approached in knee-deep water to help the 6-year-old and her mother to land. Evans then saw the 7-year-old, who had grasped onto an exposed branch on the opposite side of the river. While Evans exited the river, his wife retrieved their two-seat float. Using the float, Evans re-entered the river and swam to the 7-year-old, who had moved farther downriver. He placed her atop the float and then towed back to safety on the beach. Evans and the three people he saved were not injured.
First-responders searched the scene into the darkness that night without finding any of the missing four. Search crews eventually found the 57-year-old man the next day, Briggs’s partner and his friend two days after, and Briggs’s son three days after he submerged. All had drowned.
Evans was joined by family at a local restaurant to celebrate his heroic act and displayed his medal proudly alongside Zahren.
