Five Sacramento State Army ROTC students received honors Thursday, Sept. 11, for their attempts to rescue two people on the Feather River near Nicolas, Calif., over the Labor Day weekend.
Richard Casavecchia, Sean Peloquin, Jeremiah Jones, Emmanuel Batara and Leon Adams received unit coins from Col. Scott Donaldson, brigade commander for the Army ROTC Western Region. Coins are a military tradition and are given by commanders and senior enlisted members at their discretion for notable actions.
The students were on an outing with family and friends Saturday, Aug. 30, when they noticed a teen struggling in the water. The teen’s older brother tried to reach her but was apparently caught in an undercurrent.
Cadets Casavecchia and Peloquin were able to save the teen, but Cadets Jones and Batara, who swam towards her brother, were unable to reach him in time.
“I did my best to swim out to him, but by the time I got to him he was completely submerged,” Jones says. “I went back to the beach for my snorkel gear and went to the bottom of the river to see if I could find him, but no luck.”
The students continued to search for the swimmer for 45 minutes until rescue crews arrived and relieved them.
“This gave us all a lesson and left us with something to think about,” says Jones. “Even something casual can get ugly in just a few minutes.”
The cadets are seniors and will be commissioned as officers in the Army after graduation. Each has been submitted for a National ROTC Medal for Heroism.
For more information on Sacramento’s Army ROTC program, contact Captain Anthony Apichino, assistant professor of Military Science/ ROTC at 278-2949.
About the writer:
Sacramento State’s Mike Ward can be reached at mward@csus.edu
California State University, Sacramento • Public
Affairs
6000 J Street • Sacramento, CA 95819-6026 • (916) 278-6156 •
infodesk@csus.edu
