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Scott Ruskan
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NEED TO KNOW
- Coast Guard Petty Officer Scott Ruskan helped rescue 165 flood victims last July during his first mission just six months after training
- Now Ruskan will receive the Pat Tillman Award for Service at the 2026 ESPYS for his efforts in Texas
- The former college athlete credits the camp counselors and his fellow responders for saving lives during the disaster
Coast Guard Petty Officer Scott Ruskan shrugs off any notion that he was a hero on the day he helped rescue 165 Texas flood survivors, many of them children, from Camp Mystic last July 4.
The a 27-year-old New Jersey native, a former college track and cross country athlete at Rider University who was on his first rescue mission just six months after completing his training, says the older counselors were the true heroes that day.
“They saved a lot of lives just by getting their campers out of the campsites properly and getting them to higher grounds,” Ruskan tells PEOPLE from his base in Corpus Christi, Texas. “We were the first professional responders, but those guys who were there working the first minutes of the flood, they were truly doing the most impactful stuff.”
Still, many in the public have lauded him for his actions in the wake of the disastrous holiday flooding.
His past accolades include being honored by the Red Cross and Congress and being awarded the Legion of Merit.
That list is about to get longer: Ruskan will receive the Pat Tillman Award for Service during the ESPY Awards on July 15. The honor is given to a person with a strong connection to sports who has served others in a way that echoes the legacy of Tillman, the former NFL player and U.S. Army ranger who died in Afghanistan in 2004.
In the immediate wake of the storms last year that drowned Texas Hill Country, Ruskan, along with crew members Lt. Ian Hopper, Lt. Blair Ogujiofor and Petty Officer Seth Reeves, were dispatched from the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station in Corpus Christi.
The severe weather turned a one-hour flight into roughly eight hours.
When they arrived at Camp Mystic, it was determined that Ruskan would stay on the ground so that more children could be evacuated and he could do triage.
For three hours, with no radio and no cell service, he was the only trained responder on site. His ability to lead the evacuation in a controlled manner enabled numerous rescues on a day when more than 130 people died across the state.
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Scott Ruskan with Milly Cate, a camper at Camp Mystic, at the State of the Union Address in February
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To lighten the mood, Ruskan recalls now, he told the kids he knew it was “a little scary” to get in a helicopter but that it was super expensive to ride in one and they were getting it for free.
He kept them in good spirits. When two of the campers asked him if they could take their stuffed animals with them, knowing that weight and space were tight, he told them — of course.
“I met up with one of them later and she remembered me telling her she could,” Ruskan says, adding that hearing later from those he rescued brought a new perspective to what he did that day.
He says while doing the job, he had to stay focused. But later, connecting with the kids through phone calls, letters and personal encounters at events like the Houston Rodeo, he realized “we definitely made an impact.”
Ruskan wants to make it clear that he was just one guy working, along with so many others.
“We were such a small piece of the puzzle,” he says. “There were thousands of first responders working that day. I just happened to get picked up by the media.”
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Scott Ruskan
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Ruskan, who had studied to be an accountant and worked as an intern before deciding to join the Coast Guard, says he feels that his fellow service members “do heroic things every day.”
He notes two other major rescue cases since the floods, including one that almost seemed impossible: They took a helicopter 300 miles for a medical evacuation at night.
“Our helicopters aren’t meant to go 300 miles. We were refueling on oil rigs to make it happen,” Ruskan says. “We take a lot of risks and we accept that risk, because it may save a life.”
Growing up in a rural town with friends and family in the military, he says, he was especially touched by the story of Tillman’s sacrifice to the country.
“A great football player decided to leave all the wealth and fame for a greater cause to serve his country,” Ruskan says. “There’s nothing more patriotic than that. I’ve gotten a lot of awards, more than I probably deserve, but this one is such a huge honor.”
Hosted by Marcello Hernández, the ESPYS will air live from the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center on Wednesday, July 15 at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT on ABC and will stream on ESPN+.
Read the original article on People
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