Jump into frigid Snake chills man, but he saves boy

BURLEY, Idaho – Mike Thompson says the icy, swift Snake River hit him like a blow to the chest when he dived in Wednesday to save a 12-year-old boy from possible drowning near a south-central Idaho park.

“It felt like somebody had hit me with a two-by-four,” Thompson told the South Idaho Press on Friday.

The 27-year-old Rupert man was at Lex Kunau Park along the river swollen with spring runoff when he saw the boy and another young girl floating by on an improvised raft. The girl jumped off close to shore and made it to safety, while the youngster – whose name hasn’t been made public – stayed on while yelling and cursing for help.

As the raft swirled away from shore, the boy jumped off, swam 10 feet and went under, said Thompson, a local bartender.

“He went under and came up again and screamed ‘Help,’ so I took my glasses off,” he said. “I went off the dock and dove in.”

Unprepared for water temperature well below 60 degrees, Thompson gulped for air and shouted for his nephew on shore to call 911. Then, as emergency officials were on their way, he swam toward the boy.

Even when the Snake River warms during the summer, it can be treacherous: Last June, a young boy drowned upstream and his body was missing for a week before it was found at an Idaho Falls power plant.

Thompson wanted to keep this youngster from a similar fate.

“He’d come back up but just his eyes were above the waterline,” Thompson said. “God, he was terrified.”

Thompson turned over onto his back and told the boy grab his foot.

“I was paddling back toward the shore,” he said, describing how he paddled about 3 yards when the boy released his foot.

“I thought, oh man, I don’t have the strength to go back out there and get him,” he said.

Fortunately, the youngster followed Thompson’s lead by turning over on his back and paddling with his head above water.

By this time, a small group had gathered on the bank.

“One guy helped me out of the water, and another jumped in to make sure (the boy) got to the cement barrier,” Thompson said.

Thompson left the scene after learning from paramedics the boy would be OK. After taking a shower at his parents’ house nearby, he broke down in tears to his mother, telling her, “Mom, I couldn’t let this kid just die.”

Thompson says he isn’t a hero. The boy practically saved himself, he said.

Others aren’t convinced.

As a chaperone during a school outing with his sister’s children on Thursday to Boise, his niece “was telling everyone on the bus ‘My uncle’s a hero.’ ”

“I kept telling her ‘Stop saying that,’ ” Thompson said.