\u00a0\u201cHelp, my brother is drowning!\u201d one boy yelled. Then he heard a woman yell, \u201cThey\u2019re drowning!\u201d Schroer, an Orchard Farm volunteer firefighter, broke into a run.<\/div>\n
Amir, 11, and Aman Ellis,12, were playing by the lake while their parents, owners of Five Aces Bar-B-Que, ran a stand at RibFest. Neither boy was a strong swimmer.<\/p>\n
Schroer could see the brothers holding onto each other as they tried to tread water. When he reached the lake, Schroer caught one of the boys with his leg just as they were going underwater. He was able to give the boy enough of a shove to get safely to shore.<\/p>\n
The second boy was more of a challenge. He kept thrashing in the water, making it hard for Schroer to get hold of him. Schroer got knocked underwater three times as he tried to help the boy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis calm came over me (while I was underwater),\u201d Schroer said. \u201cIt\u2019s cheesy, but I heard (my captain\u2019s) voice telling me, \u2018Calm down and think.\u2019 I thought, if I\u2019ve got to drown, I\u2019ve got to make sure this kid gets to shore safely.\u201d<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t the first time he had heard such words from his captain, Joe Frey. During training, he nearly had a panic attack while running through a search-and-rescue activity. Crouched into a small space, in full firefighting gear, he suddenly had felt stuck and afraid.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy chief opened up the lid and told me to calm down, and breathe,\u201d Schroer said.<\/p>\n
Schroer said that same thought process allowed him to quickly assess the lake situation, and then act, that day on the lake.<\/p>\n
At one point, he got hit in the ribs, knocking the wind out of him.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
Schroer managed to grab the boy from behind, but couldn\u2019t gain traction to get back to shore. Barely able to see a foot in front of him underwater, he eventually pushed off a rock about seven or eight inches in diameter.<\/p>\n
Schroer was hindered that day by another problem, too: Six months earlier, he was hurt in a traffic crash while responding to his station for a call. He said he lost control while trying to avoid an animal in the road and his vehicle flipped three times into a telephone pole. He broke 10 ribs and punctured a lung, and was still recovering.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t thinking about my injuries,\u201d Schroer said. \u201cI was just thinking about saving those kids, that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schroer credits everything he learned at the fire department for being able to keep a cool head and save the two boys.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody I was with, they\u2019re not trained to react like that, so nobody knew what to do,\u201d Schroer said. \u201cWho knows how it would have turned out if I didn\u2019t have proper training?\u201d<\/p>\n
Schroer is now enrolled in Lindenwood University\u2019s fire and paramedic science program. He hopes to join the fire academy in January to start a full-time career, a major change from his current job in construction.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always liked helping people,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s something you\u2019re supposed to do as a human being. When somebody\u2019s in trouble, you\u2019re supposed to help them.\u201d<\/p>\n
His 11-year-old son now wants to be a firefighter when he grows up.<\/p>\n
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Read the full story HERE\u203a\u203a At first, Jayson Schroer and his family thought […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":14409,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14410,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14408\/revisions\/14410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}