Jory Thomas, 14, practices with a rope in Big Timber, Montana – credit, family photo released by Jase Thomas
From Big Sky Country comes a rescue story so cliche that even Hollywood scriptwriters would pass it over.
A 14-year-old obsessed with roping cattle rescued a man who’d fallen into a river Indiana Jones-style, catching him around the neck and arm with his lasso.
Jory Thomas was spending 4th of July weekend at his grandparents house along the Yellowstone River near Greycliff, in Sweet Grass County, when he heard someone screaming for help.
4 people, in a raft and paddle board, had struck a bridge pier and fallen in. 3 managed to get to shore, but a 4th clung helplessly to a cooler, silently and swiftly moving downriver.
Thomas didn’t think twice, he later admitted. He emptied his pockets, took his lariat and waded out up to his chest. What he had planned was straight out of a western movie.
That year, the “ranch kid” Thomas had become fixated with roping, or catching cow calves with a lasso.
“I actually started really getting into roping this year. I went to brandings and started roping cattle then, and I started getting better,” Thomas told KTVQ News 2. “Every afternoon when it cools off, I go out and rope the roping dummy.”
Convincing the man to let go of the cooler, Thomas got him around the arm and neck on his first try, while a bystander on scene rushed to help the young man reel him in.
Thomas’ father, a veteran volunteer firefighter, said that he had called 911 as soon as he heard the screaming, and police records show that from the time of the call, it took just 3 minutes for a sheriff’s deputy to arrive. By then there was hardly anything to see.
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“My opinion, Jory saved the individual’s life, 100%,” Sweet Grass County Sheriff Alan Ronneberg told Cowboy State Daily, who interviews Thomas and his family some time after the KTVQ report. “Had Jory not acted, I believe the chances of this individual not making it to shore were very slim.”
That’s because, as Thomas’ father put it, the swift current on that section of the Yellowstone quickly leads to rapids, logjams, and other obstacles that can easily claim the life of anyone floating through it.
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“I felt pretty good afterwards that I knew he was okay and was out of the water,” Thomas later said. His grandmother, Sandy Thomas, was there as well.
“He comes up, and he said, ‘I think I just saved a life,’” Sandy told KTVQ.
“And we all said, ‘Yeah, you did.’”
WATCH the story below from KTVQ…
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