A young girl was saved from drowning in the Columbia River at “Little Hawaii” near the Casino Road last Thursday, thanks to the quick wits of a 25-year-old Trail man.

Kris Koshey said he and three friends were enjoying the afternoon on the beach when he was alerted by cries from a young girl in the water.

“She was bobbing up and down, and being carried into the stronger current,” he said. “I didn’t think about it. I ripped off my shirt and ran in. I had to swim 40 yards, and then I grabbed her around her armpit with one hand and swam with my other arm.”

Koshey said the current was strong and at one point he thought he was going to be dragged under, but then he got “an adrenalin rush,” and kept on going, bringing her to shore.

Jody Bender, one of Koshey’s friends who remained on shore, said the little girl was probably about six years old and her sister, nine. Both were paddling around in the river, with their mother watching them from shore.

Little Hawaii is popular in the summer because of a wide beach area.

“There’s a bit of an eddy, but then it does start to pick up,” Bender said.

The only ones on the beach that day were Bender, Koshey and two friends in one group; the two girls with their mother in another.

Bender said they watched the kids playing in the water and no one thought anything of it.

“Slowly, they started to get pulled downstream, and then the younger one started to panic,” Bender said. “She was screaming and hyperventilating.”

By the time Koshey got to the water, Bender said the girl had been dragged downriver about 300 feet.

“The mother couldn’t swim and was up to her knees in the water, calling out to her.”

The girls weren’t wearing life jackets.

Fortunately, Bender works as a first aid attendant at Celgar and was prepared to do whatever it would take to help save the girl, but “she was all right when she came out of the water.”

The girl and her mother both thanked Koshey, but no one thought to get her name and she didn’t got Koshey’s name, hence has no idea who the man was who averted tragedy in their lives.

Almost one year ago to the very day, a similar incident occurred at Gyro Park. A young girl got caught in the current and Brian Findlow jumped in and pulled her out.

As in this case, with the excitement and relief of a rescue and life saved, no one thought to get name of the child, nor did her family get the name of her rescuer.

But after reading it in the paper, the family came forward and Findlow was nominated and received a certificate and medal from the Royal Life Saving Society.

“I was called after someone read it in the paper,” he told the Times. “I went to Vancouver in January for the ceremony and there were about 20 people from B.C. and the Yukon.”

Findlow said the people whose lives were saved were also invited to the ceremony and many of them came, as well as families of those who died, despite heroic efforts.

“It was quite a moving ceremony,” he said. “But not all (the incidents) had good outcomes.”