Image: KTVQ
What started as a quiet family camping trip along the Yellowstone River earlier this month, turned into a heroic display like something you’d see in an old Western. After hearing cries for help bellowing through the pines, a 14-year-old ranch kid trusted his handy lariat and made what is likely to be the most important throw of his life.
After a floating raft and paddleboard collided with a bridge pillar upstream, four people found themselves swept up in the river’s mighty current. And while three of the thrown victims managed to get themselves to shore, one man was left drifting, clinging to a cooler as he helplessly floated down the river.
The lone man called out for help to anyone that would listen and thankfully, his pleas reached Jory Thomas, who was camping with his family nearby. Springing into action, the teenager emptied his pockets, waded through a waist-deep side channel and sprinted along the banks of the river in an effort to get ahead of the fast-moving victim.
"This current was pretty fast then, and he was moving pretty quickly," Jory said. "Only thing I could focus on was helping him get out of the water because I didn't want to see anyone go in front of me.”
With his 12-foot lariat on hand, something his grandmother noted he’d never had with him on previous camping trips, he threw what was likely his best loop after over a year’s worth of practice. With a clean catch on the struggling man, he and another camper were able to pull the victim through the raging waters and landed him on shore where they worked to keep him calm until first responders arrived.
His father and brothers serve on the local fire department, so the instinct to move fast was already in his blood. Still, the moment hit him hard afterward, noting that he honestly never thought his roping skills would be useful on anything other than cattle. He went on to say that he felt fortunate to be in the right place at the right time and with an obscure, but useful tool for the job.
"God was basically putting me in the place of all this," he said. "God was just telling me all of this at the time and saying, 'Go get him, you got it, and I believe in you.'”
His grandmother put it simply: helping other people has always been his first instinct. And in a time when a lot of people talk about competence and grit in the abstract, this story certainly serves as a concrete example.
"His first instinct always is to help other people. He's always been that way," she said. "The whole community is proud of him. We've had a lot of feedback, but that's Jory. He's always there to help somebody else.”
