The Public Safety Forum (SAFETY)

[Diverdan]

Trapped swimmer finds `angel' looking after him
Seasoned diver braves fierce San Marcos River to bring teen out alive
By Jeremy Schwartz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, August 6, 2002
SAN MARCOS -- When rescue diver Dan Misiaszek arrived at Cummings Dam, he
was prepared to pull out another lifeless body, something he and his crew
have done dozens of times in the past 14 years.
He knew 16-year-old Dustin Kilgore had jumped off the small dam and into the
San Marcos River about a half-hour earlier, had popped out of the water for
a moment and then had been submerged once again as water cascaded over the
dam. He hadn't been seen since.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department had warned boaters to stay away from
the dam because heavy rains had washed away part of it, creating dangerous
currents.
Misiaszek, a veteran of many such recovery efforts, didn't have much hope
for this one Saturday evening: Kilgore probably had been sucked into the
churning current, which could tumble his body for hours before spitting him
out.
But then witnesses heard a voice coming from the dam, behind the curtain of
water pouring over its face. Kilgore was inside a compartment, one of five
embedded in the dam and hidden by the water still high from last month's
floods. He was standing on a ledge in neck-high water and dangerously
chilled.
The recovery operation turned into a rescue mission. Misiaszek grabbed an
extra air tank and mask for Kilgore and dived back under the water.
"As long as he was alive, we were going to find him. Failure was not an
option," Misiaszek said Monday. "I couldn't believe he had survived and made
it into that little compartment."
After adding extra weight to help him muscle through the powerful currents,
Misiaszek broke past the white-water below the dam and into a world of
darkness. It sounded like thousands of bodies doing cannonballs into the
river above his head, he said.
In his first two attempts, he entered the wrong compartment. But on the
third, he burst into Kilgore's spot, careening toward the far side.
Kilgore jumped on his back.
"The first thing he said was, 'I'm cold; I don't know if I can hold on,' "
Misiaszek said. "He looked scared but not panicked. We had to yell at each
other to hear."
Misiaszek gave Kilgore a quick lesson in scuba diving, telling him to
breathe through his mouth into the ventilator. Misiaszek had lost the extra
mask during the struggle into the compartment, so he told Kilgore to hold
his nose closed. Kilgore looped his arm through the two tanks on Misiaszek's
back, clutching a metal bar with his elbow, and the two plunged back into
the raging river.
"I knew if he didn't panic we'd get out of there," Misiaszek said.
It took four attempts to get past the turbulence, and Misiaszek gained no
purchase on the polished, gravel-sized stones on the river bottom.
Eventually they were pushed to the side of the river, where Misiaszek
grabbed onto rocks and pulled himself and Kilgore forward.
"Finally the water caught my fin and flipped me forward," Misiaszek said.
"We started to see daylight, and I knew . . ."
A battered-looking Kilgore was grabbed by other rescue workers and rushed to

a hospital, where he was treated for hypothermia and exhaustion. Misiaszek
lay inert in the river for several minutes, his own exhaustion complete.
Todd Derkacz, acting San Marcos fire chief, said he remembered another
rescue from the dam's cavities about two decades ago, when a man was pulled
out with a grappling hook.
"It is remarkable," he said. "Diving near a waterfall is always tricky."
Kilgore's friend Megan Mocksfield said Kilgore is fine -- he doesn't even
have any bumps or scratches. "He said he was just praying to God," she said.
"I guess he had an angel with him."
Kilgore, a Midland resident who has returned home, could not be reached for
comment Monday.
Misiaszek still hasn't spoken to him. But the two will remain linked:
Misiaszek as the man who saved Kilgore's life and Kilgore as the first
person that Misiaszek and the San Marcos Area Recovery Team, a group of
volunteer scuba divers, have ever rescued.
"We're never applauded when we find bodies," Misiaszek said. On Saturday
night, as Misiaszek dragged his weary body from the San Marcos River,
friends, family and onlookers stood up and clapped.
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