C. Ivis Hornocker, 30, farmer, saved Perry Gray, 27, carpenter; Orville Beatty, laborer, and Edward S. Padgett, 26, carpenter, from drowning, Portersville, Indiana, March 27, 1913. Gray and two companions were on the floodwaters of the White River in a boat, and the swift current carried the boat from its course to some trees, into one of which the men managed to climb. Their boat was carried away. The top of the tree was only 10 feet above the water, and it shook in the current, which was running 7 m.p.h. The water was 25 feet deep. Men on the bank tried to float a boat to the tree, but the attempts were unsuccessful. No one volunteered to go to the rescue, and Hornocker was sent for. Night fell, but after Hornocker and his boat arrived, he started to the rescue in the boat with a wire fastened to it. Men in a boat tied to a tree 30 feet from shore paid out wire as Hornocker was carried along by the current. Hornocker reached the grove in which the men were and then rowed when he could and pulled his boat toward the men by grasping branches. When he was 20 feet from the men, he could go no farther. He was becoming tired and could not row against the current, and there were no branches for him to grasp. Padgett threw one end of a vine, and Hornocker pulled the boat to the tree. He had come 300 feet. He had difficulty in holding the boat against the tree, but he lifted Gray into the boat. Hornocker then worked his way out of the grove, and the boat was pulled back to its starting place by men on land. Gray was numb with cold. Hornocker had consumed 30 minutes in going to the tree and back. He made two more trips for Beatty and Padgett. All the men recovered. 11771-924
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