A 13-year-old boy is being hailed a hero for saving an 11-year-old boy from drowning at Silver Lake in Everett, Washington.
Most of us have been in situations where we surprised ourselves by doing something brave we never thought we could do. We wonder later where that courage came from.
God makes us brave and enables us to do greater things when it’s needed most, just like He did for Gauge that day at the lake.
Gauge and his aunt had arrived at the lake earlier than planned to meet a friend and swim. The timing turned out to be perfect.
The 11-year-old boy had been playing on the dock with other kids when he fell into the water and never came back up.
A Stranger Senses Something Is Wrong
A woman came up to Gauge and told him she thought she saw someone underwater beneath the dock. Then the boy’s mother showed up asking if anyone had seen her son.
She said he didn’t know how to swim. That’s when Gauge knew he had to do something.
Gauge Makes a Split-Second Decision
“I didn’t have time to react, I just jumped in to grab him,” Gauge said. He dove into the murky water several times, but he could barely see anything.
Another swimmer gave him goggles, and that’s when he finally spotted the boy about 10 feet under the dock.
“He was about right here under the dock, with seaweed around him,” Gauge said.
Gauge Finds Boy Lifeless Under the Dock
The sight was heartbreaking. The child was cradled under the dock, surrounded by seaweed, completely still. He had been underwater for up to six minutes.
Getting the boy to the surface was a struggle. “I swooped him up, I had his arms like T-shaped, and I wrapped my arms around his ribs and his back so he wouldn’t fall out,” Gauge explained.
But the boy was heavy, and Gauge was running out of air. “I used my one hand to get up as much as I can, and he fell out of my arms, so I had to grab him again.”
When Gauge reached the dock, he used every bit of strength he had left to get the boy up to the people waiting above. “I started running out of air myself, so I threw him over me, and they grabbed him.”
3 Nurses Step In and Start CPR
Three nurses who happened to be at the park took over and started CPR right away. Everett Fire Department paramedics arrived and got the boy’s pulse back.
The whole experience shook Gauge up. Days later, his legs were still shaking.
Gauge Shaken But Turns to Prayer
“It kind of sucks the image is stuck in my head of him being cradled under the dock with seaweed surrounding him,” he said.
But his faith carried him through. When others took over the rescue efforts, Gauge watched his aunt pray, and he did the same.
“I started praying to myself, I was like, please God, please save this young man’s life, I want him to have a life, live long, have a healthy life, and have a wife and children,” Gauge said.
Fire Department Honors Gauge
The Everett Fire Department honored Gauge with a commemorative coin and shirt. They called him “heroic for sure.”
His grandmother cried with pride when she heard what he had done. “I wish I were here to see it all. I’m so proud of him, I think he was meant to be there at the time,” she said.
The boy he saved is in critical but stable condition at the hospital.
Gauge Believes It Was God’s Plan
Gauge believes God had a plan. “Too many things that made it where I was there at that right time and I was able to do something, I felt like it was meant to meet and we’re supposed to be friends,” he said.
Gauge has two goals now: to meet the boy he saved and give him a hug and handshake, and to get certified in CPR.
When we think about this rescue, we can see how God put together every piece of this story.
First, He made that woman speak up about what she saw instead of just walking away.
Second, He gave Gauge the courage to jump in when most people would have been too scared.
And third, God placed three nurses at the lake that day. Can you imagine what those busy frontline workers were doing there at exactly the right time?
Our God is greater than we can ever imagine. He has authority over everything. Let us praise Him for His mercy and love for us.
Let us pray for this child’s complete recovery. May God bless all who were involved in the rescue.
WATCH: 13-Year-Old Jumps Into Lake to Save Drowning Boy and Prays for His Life
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