Dad being pulled under in river raises ‘hand in desperation.’ Then ‘miracle’ happens
As a father and his two sons enjoyed a day on the river, their inflatable kayak overturned, throwing all three into a rushing Utah river.
Gaar Lausman, of Moab, was on the beach and saw the family struggling in the Colorado River on Thursday, June 6, the Grand County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue said in a June 9 Facebook post.
“I was like, ‘You need to go right now,’” Eric Odenthal, a friend who was with Lausman on the shore, told KSL-TV of the moment. “‘You just get those kids out of the water, flip their boat, save them.’”
Lausman “immediately jumped on his paddle board” and made his way to the two boys, ages 8 and 10, rescuers said.
The boys each had a life jacket, however, the one the 8-year-old was wearing “was too big,” and he couldn’t “keep his head above water,” according to rescuers. The 10-year-old’s had flipped, leaving him “face down in the water.”
While Lausman was able to pull the two boys from the water onto his paddle board, rescuers said he couldn’t reach the 40-year-old father, whose life jacket was on his lap when the kayak flipped.
The father “was still being swept down the river” when, “at that moment, life-long Moab resident Daniel Wright just happened to be traveling upstream on his jet ski,” rescuers said.
Lausman got Wright’s attention and gestured to the father, “who was almost completely submerged in the water.”
Wright spun around, rescuers said.
“I was just terrified, really, because the guy’s head was only partially out of the water, and as I was coming over to him, he went under a couple times,” Wright told KSTU.
Just as the man was being pulled underwater again, he raised “his hand in desperation,” rescuers said.
“All I remember, just … I had to help them,” Wright told KSL-TV. “I had to get him.”
Wright reached the man’s hand and pulled him from the river, the outlet reported.
“It was literally a miracle this guy (Wright) showed up,” Odenthal told KSL-TV.
Despite others calling it a “miracle,” Wright told KSTU he did what “anyone would have done” in his situation.
“It makes me emotional to think about. It was just terrifying,” Wright told the outlet. “I feel so blessed, just so blessed that God put me there and gave me the senses and the wherewithal to just help.”
After making it safely to shore, the father and sons declined help from an ambulance, rescuers said.
This story was originally published June 11, 2024 at 12:23 PM with the headline "Dad being pulled under in river raises ‘hand in desperation.’ Then ‘miracle’ happens."
