Trapped swimmer finds 'angel' looking after
him
Seasoned diver braves fierce San Marcos River to
bring teen out alive
(click for larger picture)
By Jeremy Schwartz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, August 6, 2002
SAN MARCOS -- When rescue diver Dan Misiaszek arrived at Cummings
Dam, he was prepared to pull out another lifeless body, something he
and his crew have done dozens of times in the past 14 years.
He knew 16-year-old Dustin Kilgore had jumped off the small dam
and into the San Marcos River about a half-hour earlier, had popped
out of the water for a moment and then had been submerged once again
as water cascaded over the dam. He hadn't been seen since.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department had warned boaters to
stay away from the dam because heavy rains had washed away part of
it, creating dangerous currents.
Misiaszek, a veteran of many such recovery efforts, didn't have
much hope for this one Saturday evening: Kilgore probably had been
sucked into the churning current, which could tumble his body for
hours before spitting him out.
But then witnesses heard a voice coming from the dam, behind the
curtain of water pouring over its face. Kilgore was inside a
compartment, one of five embedded in the dam and hidden by the water
still high from last month's floods. He was standing on a ledge in
neck-high water and dangerously chilled.
The recovery operation turned into a rescue mission. Misiaszek
grabbed an extra air tank and mask for Kilgore and dived back under
the water.
"As long as he was alive, we were going to find him. Failure was
not an option," Misiaszek said Monday. "I couldn't believe he had
survived and made it into that little compartment."
After adding extra weight to help him muscle through the powerful
currents, Misiaszek broke past the white-water below the dam and
into a world of darkness. It sounded like thousands of bodies doing
cannonballs into the river above his head, he said.
In his first two attempts, he entered the wrong compartment. But
on the third, he burst into Kilgore's spot, careening toward the far
side.
Kilgore jumped on his back.
"The first thing he said was, 'I'm cold; I don't know if I can
hold on,' " Misiaszek said. "He looked scared but not panicked. We
had to yell at each other to hear."
Misiaszek gave Kilgore a quick lesson in scuba diving, telling
him to breathe through his mouth into the ventilator. Misiaszek had
lost the extra mask during the struggle into the compartment, so he
told Kilgore to hold his nose closed. Kilgore looped his arm through
the two tanks on Misiaszek's back, clutching a metal bar with his
elbow, and the two plunged back into the raging river.
"I knew if he didn't panic we'd get out of there," Misiaszek
said.
It took four attempts to get past the turbulence, and Misiaszek
gained no purchase on the polished, gravel-sized stones on the river
bottom. Eventually they were pushed to the side of the river, where
Misiaszek grabbed onto rocks and pulled himself and Kilgore forward.
"Finally the water caught my fin and flipped me forward,"
Misiaszek said. "We started to see daylight, and I knew . . ."
A battered-looking Kilgore was grabbed by other rescue workers
and rushed to a hospital, where he was treated for hypothermia and
exhaustion. Misiaszek lay inert in the river for several minutes,
his own exhaustion complete.
Todd Derkacz, acting San Marcos fire chief, said he remembered
another rescue from the dam's cavities about two decades ago, when a
man was pulled out with a grappling hook.
"It is remarkable," he said. "Diving near a waterfall is always
tricky."
Kilgore's friend Megan Mocksfield said Kilgore is fine -- he
doesn't even have any bumps or scratches. "He said he was just
praying to God," she said. "I guess he had an angel with him."
Kilgore, a Midland resident who has returned home, could not be
reached for comment Monday.
Misiaszek still hasn't spoken to him. But the two will remain
linked: Misiaszek as the man who saved Kilgore's life and Kilgore as
the first person that Misiaszek and the San Marcos Area Recovery
Team, a group of volunteer scuba divers, have ever rescued.
"We're never applauded when we find bodies," Misiaszek said. On
Saturday night, as Misiaszek dragged his weary body from the San
Marcos River, friends, family and onlookers stood up and clapped.
jschwartz@statesman.com; (512) 392-8750
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