Robert B. Keane helped to save Jacki R. Metz and four others from drowning, Rome, New York, June 28, 2001. Ms. Metz, 28, and four others, including two children, were aboard a 17-foot boat on Lake Delta when the boat’s motor failed. Despite the party’s efforts to restart the motor and to paddle to safety, the boat was drawn by the current toward the spillway of a dam. Water flowed over the spillway, which had a 60-foot drop to the river below. In his 18-foot boat about a quarter-mile away, Keane, 27, and a friend saw the distressed boat and immediately responded to the scene. As they approached, Ms. Metz and the others of her party entered the lake, and, from a point near the dam, Keane and his friend pulled the children from the water into Keane’s boat. Keane took his boat to two of the adults who were at the distressed vessel, which by then was lodged against the spillway. As Keane and his friend secured one of the adults, his boat struck the distressed one, but did not dislodge it, and itself became immobilized, temporarily, against the spillway. Freeing his boat, Keane positioned it for the rescue of the other adult, and again it became immobilized against the spillway. Another boat responded about the n, and the third adult from Ms. Metz’s party, who had remained in the water, swam a line from Keane’s boat to it. That boat towed Keane’s from the spillway to open water, after which Keane and his friend took it, all victims aboard, to safety.
75449 – 8601
75449-8601