Teen counselors and rookie rescue swimmer save dozens in Texas camp flood | Texas floods 2025

A rescue swimmer from the American coast guard during his first rescue mission as well as adolescent advisers who helped the young cold and wet campers were credited for saving dozens of lives in a rave Christian summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe river in Texas.

Their stories of heroism and courage – including the names of the young campers of advisers on their arms and legs with Sharpies so that the authorities can identify them if necessary – are among the first to emerge telling the dark reality of the water torrent which jumped by the girl camp, where at least 27 campers and advisers are known.

Tuesday morning, five other campers and an advisor remained unaffected.

The master of the Coast Guard Scott Ruskan, 26, of Oxford, New Jersey, spoke of picking children covered in safety in safety after his helicopter crew stolen from a appalling time to reach the campsite in rural hunt early Friday afternoon.

He and his colleagues, he said to the Washington Post, were welcomed with devastation scenes, and dozens of children, adolescent camp advisers and desperate staff to escape.

“This is how fast this flood water has increased,” he said in the newspaper in a telephone interview. “They did not have time to grab shoes. You just wear children who don’t have shoes, they are covered with mud and you try to get them out of there.

“Some of this was simply to talk to them and console them and try to make them comfortable.”

Ruskan, who joined the Coast Guard in 2021 and qualified as a rescue swimmer that last year, is recognized for having saved at least 165 lives during the three hours he spent on the ground by sorting children and adults, and hieving the evacuation of the most necessary cases, many aboard the National Guard of Texas Black Hawk Helicopters.

Many advisers, he said, were not much older than the young girls they chaper-and they deserved the merit of their role in the safeguarding of lives. He said that some told him to throw children through the windows and the doors to escape the flood waters that increase quickly.

“It was really heroic stuff from these camp advisers,” said Ruskan. “I really hope they get the recognition they deserve.”

Two mystical camp advisers, Silvana Garza Valdez and María Paula Zárate, 19, of Mexico, spoke to the Mexican information network Televisa about the event, which, according to them, started around 3 am on Friday when the electricity of the camp is out.

But it was only about noon, they said, that the advisers were informed that certain regions of the sprawling campsite of 725 acres had been flooded and that the survivors had been gathered in a dining room. The couple said that the urgency of the situation became clearer and that they started preparing the girls under their care of what could be to come.

“We started writing the names of girls on their skin, wherever he could be visible,” said Zárate.

“We told them to make a bag with all their business, everything that was most necessary … to prepare us to evacuate. But we did not know if they were going to evacuate us or not, and we therefore waited. ”

They tried to calm girls frightened with songs and games while looking at furniture and other washing camp equipment as the water increased.

“All the girls started to go crazy and cry because they did not want to leave the camp – because they wanted to be with their parents,” said Garza Valdez. “It was a terrible situation. I can’t explain it. It was something very horrible.”

She said that she and those with her did not initially realize that others at the camp were dead.

“What they told us about at the time is that 25 girls lacked – and two were found in a neighboring campsite.”

They did not have their mobile phones with them to be able to know more about the situation that took place – or call their families – because the devices were kept in the camp front of the camp, said Garza Valdez.

Their group was finally rescued by a military team who arrived at the campsite almost at the same time as the Coast Guard and the National Guard.

“I felt like I was in a dream – I didn’t think it was true,” said Garza Valdez.

“I don’t think I understood the severity of the situation until we saw him going on army trucks. It was terrible. A week ago, we slept in the [hardest-hit cabins]And so it was difficult to treat that they had moved and that we are alive ”because of this.

Ruskan spoke of the frustration of not being able to reach the camp Mystic immediately. He told the post that the first flood reports had been received at 6:30 am on Friday, and that his crew was in the air at 7 a.m. – but had to redirect to San Antonio due to zero visibility.

They finally landed at the hunt at 2:30 p.m., overthrowing archery targets in a field of the descending current of the helicopter going down.

The former financial consultant recalled that his coaches had told him that his first rescue missions would be different from everything they had taught him to expect.

“It’s the genre,” he said. “The wait is that everyone is looking for someone so as not to be a hero, but in a way, help them and locate them.

“This is what they needed to be, and that’s what it was in this case.”