Joshua Aaron Traylor and Ron Allen Elko helped to save a 3-year-old boy from drowning, Mount Clemens, Michigan, April 9, 2017, Traylor drowning in the process.
The boy was on a dock on a bank of the Clinton River when he fell into the deep, 45-degree water and was carried away from the dock by a fast-moving current. Traylor, 24, a construction worker of Clinton Township, Mich., who was also on the dock, entered the river in an attempt to reach the boy but shortly began to struggle to stay afloat and submerged. Elko, 36, factory worker, also of Clinton Township, who was fishing nearby, was alerted and ran to the scene.
Seeing the boy submerge, Elko jumped into the water near him, grasped the boy’s shirt and brought him to the surface, then kicked his legs and moved them both toward a boardwalk that extended along the river’s bank. At the boardwalk Elko raised the boy up and handed him to another person, who secured him, then pulled himself out of the water and onto the boardwalk.
The boy was taken to a hospital for evaluation. Traylor was recovered from the river by rescue divers about an hour after he submerged but could not be revived. He had drowned.
89082-10015/89092-10016
Related articles:
- Overheard: Impulse 58
- Carnegie Medal Presentation to Joshua Aaron Traylor and Ron Allen Elko
- Overheard: Impulse 55