An off-duty firefighter dove under a capsized boat three times on the Fourth of July to pull out three trapped children — reviving two of them himself before rescue crews even arrived.
Jason Horne, a medic and firefighter with the Midlothian Fire Department in Texas, was on Alvarado Lake with his 12-year-old daughter, Emilie, when a group of people started frantically waving them down.
“It was scary,” Emilie told WFAA. “I just saw him dive in.”
Alvarado police say a boat carrying nine people had flipped, trapping three children beneath it. Horne swam over and went under to search.
“I went underwater, under the boat, just seeing if I could grab anything, and I felt a life jacket,” he told WFAA.
He pulled out a little boy first, breathing but lethargic, then went back under.
“I took a breath, dove underneath the boat again, reached like I did the first time, and I grabbed a leg,” Horne said.
This time it was a little girl, unresponsive. Horne climbed onto the overturned hull and began CPR while Emilie called 911.
“I can hear her crying,” Emilie said, of the moment the girl started breathing again.
Horne went back a third time for the last child but came up empty-handed in the murky water. Other boaters worked to flip the hull, and the final boy surfaced tangled in anchor line.
“He had a bunch of anchor line or rope wrapped around his body,” Horne said. The boy wasn’t breathing, but Horne restored his pulse before racing him to the dock.
All three children were taken to the hospital for evaluation. As a father of four himself, Horne said the rescue carried extra weight.
“I’ve always preached to my kids safety. They get mad because they have to wear life jackets,” he told WFAA. “I tell them, I say, ‘I can find you if you’re floating. I can’t find you if you sink.’ Fortunately all of these children — it was a weird circumstance — but they were all wearing a life jacket. I truly believe that’s what helped in the end.”
In a statement, Alvarado police thanked Horne for his “courageous and selfless actions,” adding that his “willingness to act without hesitation exemplifies the very best of the public safety profession.”
“I’m glad that whatever lined up lined up that we were where we were when we were there,” Horne said.
