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A six-year-old girl and her grandmother were enjoying themselves
by the water of Lewis and Clark Lake, near Yankton, South Dakota on
the warm afternoon of July 7, 2011. Unfortunately for the girl and
her grandmother, at some point the girl lost a flip-flop to the
water and tried to retrieve it.
Not too far from the girl and
her grandmother, Gary McDonald and Kevin McDonald, two brothers who
are Yankton natives, were working with Doug Stockholm, a contractor
hired to help the brothers re-shingle the McDonald family cabin. The
eldest brother, Gary McDonald, said something that week kept pulling
his attention toward the water. Gary McDonald remembers standing on
the ground, preparing shingles to be brought up to the roof, but his
attention drifted out to the water once again, and that's when he
saw something wrong. He said he saw a woman and a little girl
floating through the strong current of the flooded Lewis and Clark
Lake.
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Gary McDonald, a 60-year old Yankton, S.D., native (left), Doug Stockholm, a 61-year old Springfield, S.D., native (center), and Kevin McDonald, a 52-year old Yankton, S.D., native (right), pose for a group photograph after they received the Coast Guard Silver Lifesaving Medal at the McDonald family home in Yankton, S.D., Dec. 16, 2015. (U.S. Coast Guard photograph by Petty Officer 2nd Class Seth Johnson)
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“I knew it was bad news,” said Gary McDonald. “So much
water was moving through there, it was moving chunks of
island that you could have parked a pickup truck on. The
girl was hanging on to her grandmother's neck and her
grandmother was floating on her back. I got an artificial
knee and I was trying to run down the road so I just yelled
to [Kevin McDonald].”
Stockholm said he saw Gary
heading to the water out of the corner of his eye and once
he heard him shout for his brother, told Kevin he'd better
get down to the ground because something wasn't right. While
Gary made a beeline toward the water and jumped in, boots
and all, Stockholm and Kevin made their way to the water.
Stockholm said as Kevin McDonald jumped in, he called 911 to
notify authorities of the emergency, telling first
responders they needed a boat to assist them.
The three Coast Guard Silver
Lifesaving Medals presented to Doug Stockholm, Kevin
McDonald and Gary McDonald, three men who put themselves in
danger to save the lives of a 6-year-old girl and her
grandmother, Dec. 16, 2015. (U.S. Coast Guard photograph by
Petty Officer 2nd Class Seth Johnson)
“You put your
ankle in the water and you take another step and you're
above your head,” said Kevin McDonald, a retired Coast Guard
Master Chief.
The three men said due to the Missouri
River's exceptionally high water, there was barely any shore
and it dropped off immediately into a swift current that
took them downstream.
“I swam down-river to them,”
said Kevin McDonald. “Due to the region, if you go any
further down you'll end going around a curve that will take
you to Yankton, and there's nothing but a solid drop – no
bank, so Gary thought the only way to save them was to swim
upriver.”
As the brothers reached the grandmother and
her granddaughter, they grabbed the young girl and began
swimming upriver, battling the current, passing her back and
forth as they became tired to preserve energy and keep them
from becoming victims themselves.
As the McDonald's
were helping the girl, Stockholm, a man who can't swim,
grabbed a child's inflatable raft and thinking on his feet,
drove down-stream to a point where he believed he could
reach the distressed woman and child, as well as the two
brothers.
“First time I stepped in I said ‘Wow,'
because I never touched bottom,” said Stockholm. “There were
some people up above watching and they said ‘Can you swim?'
and I said ‘No, but there's nobody here doing anything
different.' So what do you do? I had that small raft that
was half out of air and I pushed it ahead of me. I got to
[the grandmother] and she said to me ‘don't let go.'”
As the three men struggled against the current, Ian
Jackson, nephew to the McDonald brothers, also jumped into
the water and was able to take the young girl in his arms to
augment the rescue effort. Both brothers claim that if it
weren't for Jackson's efforts, they can't be sure they would
have been able to make it back to shore. While the McDonald
family brought the girl to shore, they said Stockholm,
hanging onto the flotation device, brought the grandmother
to shore. Kevin McDonald said they were beyond exhausted,
and once they finally reached shore, just lay on the grass
and were unable to move for a long time.
Doug
Stockholm, a 61-year old Springfield, S.D., native, has the
Coast Guard's Silver Lifesaving Medal pinned to his shirt by
Coast Guard Capt. Martin Malloy, commander, Coast Guard
Sector Upper Mississippi, at an award ceremony in Yankton,
S.D., Dec. 16, 2015. (U.S. Coast Guard photograph by Petty
Officer 2nd Class Seth Johnson)
The men knew they had
saved two lives that day, what they were unaware of is that
due to their actions, they would join the ranks of a very
small group of recipients for a very prestigious award.
In recognition for their actions on July 7, 2011, the
three men gathered at the McDonald family home in Yankton,
South Dakota, on December 16, 2015, where the Coast Guard
presented all three with the silver lifesaving medal.
Presenting the medals to the men was Capt. Martin
Malloy, commander, Coast Guard Sector Upper Mississippi,
Master Chief Petty Officer Ryan Fahlenkamp, Coast Guard
District 8 command master chief and Senior Chief Petty
Officer William Klein, Coast Guard Sector Upper Mississippi
command senior chief.
Family members came together in
the living room when the time came to present the award,
some standing, some sitting, as each man's name was called
to receive their award and join Malloy while a summary of
their actions was read to the family by Klein. Toward the
end of each reading, Fahlenkamp and Malloy pinned the silver
medals, which have the initials of the recipients engraved
on the back, to their shirts.
“It was one of the
highlights of my career to be involved in a recognition
ceremony of heroes and to have been with guys who are in the
same company as Nimitz, Patton and Byrd, who have also been
awarded the Silver Lifesaving Medal,” said Malloy. “It was a
very humbling event. Spending time with the family and the
pride that they showed, it was readily evident that they
showed true American values and true American heroism.”
When asked if they felt like heroes, the three men
unanimously said they did not. They paused, thinking about
the question.
“You have to try to do something,” said
Stockholm.
“We couldn't have done it without each
other,” said Gary McDonald.
His brother, Kevin
McDonald nodded in agreement.
“It was a group
effort,” he said.
By U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Seth Johnson
Provided
through
Coast
Guard
Copyright 2016
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