Boy Scout Rescues Drowning Child from Anacortes Waterfront
A 14-year-old uses his training to save a drowning boy from the logs at the foot of 31st Street.
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Fourteen-year-old Clyde Holman recently made use of his Boy Scout training to run out on a boom of logs, dive to the bottom beneath 12 feet of water and pull 11-year-old Billy Jasen to the surface and to the boom, where he helped in getting the unconscious boy onto the logs. Young Holman then directed other boys in administering first aid to the drowning boy, and before physicians could reach the foot of 31st St., where the log boom was tied up, Billy had recovered consciousness. He was taken home, where recovery was completed.
“Young Holman then directed other boys in administering first aid to the drowning and before physicians could reach the foot of 31st St.”
Anacortes remains a city deeply defined by its relationship to the water, though the working waterfront has shifted from the dangerous log booms of the 1920s to modern marine industry. The reliance on local youth organizations for emergency response in the pre-professionalized era highlights the communal nature of public safety at the time.
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