Keavy Joseph Neff helped to save a man from drowning, Spokane, Washington, April 25, 2007. A 23-year-old man entered the Spokane River and was swept several hundred feet downstream by the very swift current. Shouting for help, he was heard by Neff, 44, carpenter, who lived near the river. Neff pursued the man on foot and then on his bicycle, riding about 3,000 feet along the river to an accessible point on its bank ahead of the man’s course. There, Neff removed his outer attire and, despite a water temperature in the 40s, dived into the river. He swam out to intercept the man at a point about 30 feet from the bank and then, establishing a hold on him, began to swim back in. Firefighters who had responded threw a line to them and pulled them to the bank. The man required hospitalization, and Neff suffered a pulled muscle.
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