It was Petty Officer Scott Ruskan’s first mission as a US Coast Guard rescue swimmer.
The 26-year-old was new to the Coast Guard. He had left a previous career as an accountant before enlisting, and had graduated from rescue swimming school around six months ago when his team got the call from Task Force 1, a local search-and-rescue team in Texas, early Friday morning.
They were needed urgently in central Texas where torrential flooding had struck over the July Fourth weekend. Dozens of people were dead, and more were missing.
The team deployed around 7 a.m. Friday from Corpus Christi, about 200 miles south of where the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, Texas, had risen from about 3 feet to nearly 30 feet. Floodwaters in the area had swept through and battered several youth camps on the river banks — including Camp Mystic, the summer camp where they were headed.
Around 200 campers at the all-girls Christian camp needed to be rescued, Ruskan said. With bridges and roadways overcome by floodwaters and the water too high for boat rescues, the only option was to airlift the girls.
A call for rescue
Counselors and staff at Camp Mystic had been scrambling to rescue campers, pushing some through cabin windows and putting children on mattresses to help float on the rising water. More than a month’s worth of rain dumped on the area, and floodwaters overtook the site.
Hundreds of local, state and national first responders had surged to the Kerrville area to help find and rescue survivors. The ongoing urgent response includes Black Hawk helicopters deployed by the Texas National Guard and Air National Guard.
What should have been a one-hour flight into the landing zone near the camp took about six or seven hours, Ruskan told CNN. The crew battled “some pretty, pretty nasty weather,” he told CNN, some of the worst he had experienced in his career.
It took the team four attempts and the help of the Air National Guard for the aircraft to make its way through the brutal storm, he said. From above, he could see firsthand the devastating flood and its effects on the landscape. “I’ve never seen anything this tragic in my life,” he said.
On the ground, Ruskan realized he was the only first responder around and was met with “about 200 kids, mostly all scared, terrified, cold, having probably the worst day of their life.”
But after arriving at Camp Mystic, Ruskan said, the crew was needed at another, more dangerous location.
The aircraft could fit more people at the next site without him onboard, and Ruskan could help where he was.
The crew decided leaving him behind at Camp Mystic as a triage coordinator at the “hectic” site was the best option. They were ultimately able to airlift 15 children at the other location without Ruskan on the aircraft.
At the camp, Ruskan comforted the distressed children gathered into an area above the flood zone, and heard stories from camp counselors who rushed to push campers out the door before cabins flooded. Some kids had cuts on their feet because they were barefoot. They didn’t have time to put on shoes before they scrambled to safety.
For around three hours, Ruskan said, he was the only rescuer on site and had no communication due to poor radio reception and no cell service. But any fear he had, he pushed aside to focus on his young charges.
“They’re having probably the worst day of their life. They’re missing friends. They’re missing loved ones,” he said. “They don’t know where they are. Some of them may be unaccounted for. Some of them may be somewhere else.”
He did his best to reassure the shell-shocked campers, promising he would get them out and that other rescuers were looking for their missing friends. Comfort “could be something as simple as holding their hand,” he added.
Texas Air National Guard aircraft landed at the camp’s archery field and soccer field, and Ruskan led the children, about 10 to 15 at a time, to the aircraft. He focused on getting the youngest children out first.
Ruskan helped rescue approximately 165 campers with him, carrying some to the helicopter to help them avoid slipping on wet rocks or cutting their feet even more.
Despite rescuers’ best efforts, 27 of the girls’ Camp Mystic friends and counselors died in the catastrophic floods, and 10 campers and one counselor are still unaccounted for.
The camp’s longtime director Dick Eastman also died, trying to rescue campers. At least 100 people have died from the devastating floods.
Ruskan says the magnitude of his effort has just started to sink in. The rescue swimmer has been hailed as an “American hero” by the Department of Homeland Security. The agency lauded the “extraordinary bravery and selfless service of Ruskan and his fellow first responders.” But he said the other counselors who helped rescue efforts and the tough kids were also heroes.
Seeing how bravely they acted, he said, “it made me a better rescuer.”
CNN’s Boris Sanchez, Anderson Cooper, Betsy Klein, Alex Stambaugh, Lauren Mascarenhas, Isaac Yee, and Josh Campbell contributed to this report.
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