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A 14-year-old Montana rancher-in-training says God put him in the right place at the right time after he used the cowboy skills he’d spent months practicing to lasso and rescue a drowning man from the Yellowstone River following a rafting accident.
Jory Thomas was camping with his family near Greycliff, Montana, on July 5 when they heard someone screaming for help.
“We all heard, ‘Help, help,'” Thomas told KTVQ. “There’s two or three people floating down the river, one hanging on to the cooler, and he wasn’t saying anything.”
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The Sweet Grass County Sheriff’s Office honored Thomas with a Certificate of Achievement. (Facebook/Sweet Grass County Sheriff’s Office)
A raft and paddleboard had struck a bridge pillar, throwing four people into the river. Three reached shore, but one man continued drifting downstream while clinging to a cooler.
Thomas said there was no time to wait.
“This current was pretty fast then, and he was moving pretty quickly,” he said. “Only thing I could focus on was helping him get out of the water because I didn’t want to see anyone go in front of me.”
A general view of the Yellowstone River and the Absaroka Mountains on July 31, 2023, in Paradise Valley near Pray, Montana. (David Madison / Getty Images)
He emptied his pockets, crossed a waist-deep side channel and ran along the bank. Then he grabbed a 12-foot lariat he’d brought from home — something his grandmother told the station he’d never packed for a camping trip before.
“My first instinct I thought was try and rope him and drag him out before he gets too far down the river,” Thomas said. “Luckily, I caught him first try.”
The Yellowstone River erodes river banks as it flows north towards Livingston, Mont. on June 15, 2022. (Louise Johns for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Thomas pulled the man toward shore through chest-deep water until first responders arrived.
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The teenager said he’d only started taking roping seriously this year while helping with cattle on the family ranch, telling the station that his skills improving the more he roped cattle.
Thomas said he believes his faith guided him to act.
“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.'”
He later reflected that he never expected the same skills he learned on the ranch would save a person’s life.
“I just thought I could help with cattle,” Thomas said. “Not really helping humans and stuff like that. But I’m glad I was here to help.”
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The Sweet Grass County Sheriff’s Office later honored Thomas with a Certificate of Achievement. Sheriff Ronneberg and Undersheriff Swanson recognized the teen for rescuing the man near Pelican Fishing Access.
“Well done, Jory!” the sheriff’s office wrote in a social media post.