More than 70 people were killed in the Texas Hill Country after a killer wave swept over the region. More than 43 of the dead were found in Kerr County. Authorities say more than two dozen young girls from Camp Mystic and an untold number of other people are still unaccounted for.
A United States Coast Guard petty officer, on his first rescue mission, been credited with saving 165 lives in the Texas Hill Country, according to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Petty Officer Scott Ruskan “directly saved an astonishing 165 victims in the devastating flooding in central Texas,” Noem wrote on X. She did not provide details on the rescues.
“This was the first rescue mission of his career and he was the only triage coordinator at the scene,” she said of the 26-year-old New Jersey native.
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Ruskan, who previously worked as an accountant, before joining the Coast Guard, was in charge of triage at Camp Mystic, the Christian summer camp for young girls that was devastated by the floodwaters.
“This is why we take those risks all time. This is why like Coast Guard men and women, are risking their lives every day,” the petty officer told The New York Post.
Noem called Ruskan an “American hero” whose “selfless courage embodies the spirit and mission of the Coast Guard.”
Ruskan told the New York Post that he was just doing his job and instead praised the work of his fellow members of the Coast Guard.
“Honestly, I’m mostly just a dude. I’m just doing a job. This is what I signed up for, and I think that any single Coast Guard rescue swimmer or any single Coast Guard pilot, flight mechanic, whoever it may be, would have done the exact same thing in our situation,” he told the newspaper in an exclusive interview.
“That’s what we were asked to do and we’re gonna do it. Any one of us, if anyone else was on duty that day, they would have done the same thing as us. We just happened to be the crew that got the case,” he added.
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Ruskan is a genuine American hero and his valiant work in Texas is worthy of the Medal of Honor.
Syndicated with permission from ToddStarnes.com – founded by best-selling author and journalist Todd Starnes. Starnes is the recipient of an RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award and the Associated Press Mark Twain Award for Storytelling.
