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Mar 19, 2009 11:06 pm US/Central
Businessman Saves Fort Worth Boy From Drowning
FORT WORTH (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
A man from Atlanta says he was at the right place at the right time when he was in Fort Worth Wednesday.
While jogging along the Trinity River, he saved a boy from drowning.
"I was just at the right place at the right time," Mark Ward said. He is a system support manager with the Federal Aviation Administration and at 5'2", he is fit as a fiddle.
After his business meetings were done for the day, Ward decided to leave his hotel room for a six-mile jog. Ward had already jogged six miles that morning. It was 5:30 p.m. and it was a beautiful day.
At the four-mile mark, Ward found himself in the heart of Trinity Park where children and their parents milled around playground equipment and at the water's edge.
That's when he spotted a crowd at one of the man-made rock bridges in the river.
Ward said they were watching two women and a boy who looked to be about five to seven-years-old in the water.
"It looked like they were playing," Ward said. "It looked like they were passing the boy back and forth between them."
Ward approached a woman on the sidewalk and asked if everything was okay. Ward said the woman "looked at me with a panicked look and said, 'no!'"
Then Ward realized one of the women in the water was heavy-set and struggling to stay afloat. That's when the 52-year-old, who describes himself as an excellent swimmer, sprung into action. He kicked off his running shoes, ran down to the river and jumped into the water.
When he reached the women, he asked who needed help first. Both women said, "The boy!"
Ward pulled him close to his chest so he could face the boy and comfort him. Then Ward paddled backwards to shore.
The boy couldn't stop talking on the way back. "He said, 'I don't want to die! I don't want to die!' He just kept saying that all the way back to shore." Ward said.
Once they made it to safety, Ward said the boy kept saying, "I didn't mean to fall in! I didn't mean to fall in!"
A 15-year-old drowned at that same spot in October of 2007. At 6'4", Jorge Almanza towered over his classmates. While taking pictures of the ducks, he lost his balance and drowned.
Ward only knew the boy whose life he saved as Matthew. But the Atlanta man is proud he may have helped to add many more years to his young life.
Ward said, "I guess because there's a little boy that may go on to become a great doctor or something. Who knows?"
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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