A Montana teenager’s rodeo skills — and what he described as his trust in God — helped turn a frightening moment on the Yellowstone River into a dramatic rescue, according to local reports and officials.
Jory Thomas, 14, was on a family camping trip near Greycliff on July 5 when shouts from across the water suddenly cut through the day, KTVQ reported.
“We all heard, ‘Help, help,’” Thomas told the station.
He said he then spotted “two or three people” being swept along by the river, including one person holding onto a cooler who was no longer calling out.
With a lariat in hand, the young rodeo rider rushed to respond. He soon learned that a raft and a paddleboard had slammed into a bridge pillar, throwing four people into the fast-moving Yellowstone River, according to the report.
Most of the group managed to reach the bank, but one man remained in the water, floating downstream as he gripped the cooler for support.
“This current was pretty fast then, and he was moving pretty quickly,” Thomas recalled.
The teen said his only thought in that moment was getting the man to safety, adding that he could not bear the idea of watching someone drift past him helplessly.
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The teen leapt to the rescue, running through a waist-deep side channel and sprinting along the river bank to reach the man as he drifted away.
He then grabbed his 12-foot lariat and successfully swung it around the drowning man on his first try.
“First instinct I thought was try and rope him and drag him out before he gets too far down the river,” he said. “Luckily, I caught him first try.”
Thomas managed to yank him ashore until first responders showed up, officials said.
“I felt pretty good afterwards that I knew he was okay and was out of the water,” the heroic teen said.
“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.’”
Thomas has been practicing lassoing for the last year, mainly on a cattle head he built in his backyard on his family’s ranch in Big Timber, The Washington Post reported.
For his “heroic” rescue, the boy was awarded a Certificate of Achievement by the Sweet Grass County Sheriff’s Office, the department announced in a Facebook post.
“Jory is a strong believer of if somebody needs help, you’re going to do everything you can,” his mother, Robin Thomas, told the outlet.
