A teenager is being praised for pulling off a heroic act straight out of an American western film. The boy saved a man from drowning by lassoing him like a cowboy.
Fourteen-year-old Jory Thomas was just visiting with his grandparents on their campground near Yellowstone River. Jory had his lariat to practice the roping skills he’d been learning for the past year. That’s when he heard cries for help from the nearby river.
“We all heard, ‘Help, help,’” Jory said to KTVQ News. “There’s two or three people floating down the river, one hanging on to the cooler, and he wasn’t saying anything.”
A raft carrying four people crashed into a bridge pillar, knocking them all into the Yellowstone River. While three of them made it to shore, the fourth was drifting quickly downstream as he clung to a cooler. Jory emptied his pockets and grabbed his lariat, immediately rushing to help.
Practice prepared him for this moment
“This current was pretty fast then, and he was moving pretty quickly,” said Jory. “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.”
Jory had been practicing using a lariat to rope a dummy on his parents’ ranch nearly every afternoon when the weather was fair. Ready for action, Jory ran into the shallower part of the river, getting chest-deep into the water. Letting his training do the work, Jory took his 12-foot lariat and lassoed the drowning man.
“Luckily, I caught him first try,” he said.
Jory slowly pulled the man to shore as first responders arrived.
“I felt pretty good afterwards that I knew he was okay and was out of the water,” he said. “God was basically putting me in the place of all this. God was just telling me all of this at the time and saying, ‘Go get him, you got it, and I believe in you.’”
Jory’s instinct was to help
Jory’s family was proud but not too surprised that he leapt into action. To them, being helpful was just Jory being Jory.
“His first instinct always is to help other people. He’s always been that way,” said Sandy, Thomas’ grandmother. “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.”
“We’ll be in town at the grocery store, and you’ll see an elderly person,” Jase, Jory’s father, told Cowboy State Daily. “They can’t pack the groceries, and he never says a word. He goes over and gets their groceries and packs them out. That’s just who he is.”
The local police also praised Jory for taking action.
“My opinion, Jory saved the individual’s life, 100%,” said Sweet Grass County Sheriff Alan Ronneberg. “Had Jory not acted, I believe the chances of this individual making it to shore were very slim.”’
“Jory saw another in trouble and acted, not for himself but for another,” Ronneberg added. “Jory is a lesson for all of us in this day and age and showed us what is courageous and right.”
