“It’s just a crazy chain of events,” said Benjamin Scotch (‘28).
On November 4th, he and Kellen Mathews (‘27) had sat down to eat lunch on the patio outside the dining hall when a woman ran up, screaming for help. A kid had jumped into the lake and was drowning.
Earlier, Scotch and Mathews had left an office hours session when Scotch suggested that they get lunch, which they never did. They had also never eaten on the patio, and they were the only ones who had sat there when they met the woman.
“Me and him just looked at each other, and we both bolted to the lake,” said Mathews.
Once at the lake, the two students saw a kid fighting to swim near the waterski jump, his head bobbing below the surface. They quickly dove in and swam out to him. A boat was on its way over, and they hoisted the kid onto the boat, where he struggled to breathe and could only produce slurred speech.
They later found out that, back on the shore, the kid had been operating an RC boat, which had stopped working. The kid had decided to jump into the lake and retrieve it, but he was hit with a strong current, and the weight of his clothes kept pulling him underwater.
Mathews reflected on the circumstances of the situation, in particular the fact that he and Scotch both happen to be strong swimmers, “If we didn’t know how to swim or get out there, who knows what would’ve happened?” he said.
Both students agreed that, while strange and coincidental, the course of their day happened to align right with the incident, which could have gone very differently if they had not made any of the small decisions they had, up through deciding to sit outside.
“We’re just lucky that we got to him when we did,” said Mathews. “And we’re lucky that we were out there.”
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