Scott Ruskan Coast Guard and his team save 165 people amid Kerr County, Texas flash floods as the rescuer swimmer describes his ascent as a former accountant to a champion rescuer with the hardest part of the job often having to comfort family members grieving loss.
A US Coast Guard rescue swimmer, and his team have been hailed heroes after saving 165 people during the deadly flooding in Kerr County, central Texas.
‘This is what it’s all about, right? Like, this is why we do the job,’ said Scott Ruskan, 26, a New Jersey native and former KPMG accountant turned ‘rescue swimmer,’ according to the nypost.
‘This is why we take those risks all time. This is why like Coast Guard men and women are risking their lives every day,’ said Petty Officer Ruskan, who was in charge of triage at Camp Mystic, the Christian girls’ summer camp that saw some of the worst of the flooding.
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Raised in Oxford, NJ, Ruskan enlisted in the Coast Guard in 2021, and after completing basic training, went to Aviation survival technician school in Petaluma, Calif., before being stationed in Corpus Christi, Texas.
He had been on call since November after completing all his training, familiarizing himself with the Coast Guard’s iconic MH-65 helicopter and enrolling in additional rescue swimming classes as he waited to be called into action.
That fateful call came on the Fourth of July as a massive summer rainstorm led to catastrophic flash flooding that as of Monday night had claimed 104 lives.
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‘The hardest part of the job is comforting family members’
Bryan Winchell, a helicopter search and rescue technician with Texas Task Force 1 called the Coast Guard looking to get boots on the ground and in the air for an emergency rapid response near central Texas.
‘That’s a little bit outside our area of operation normally, but people were in danger, and we’re a good asset to try and help people out, and these guys were asking for help, so that’s kind of what we do,’ Ruskan said.
Their destination was Camp Mystic, a Christian girls’ summer camp just off the banks of the Guadalupe River, which saw some of the worst of the flooding.
Over the next several hours, Ruskan spearheaded a high-risk rescue mission under treacherous conditions, which in the end saw 165 brought to safety.
‘So we basically got the majority of the people out of Camp Mystic, which is awesome. And I feel like we did a lot of good that day,’ the hero told the nypost.
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While on the ground, Ruskan tended to terrified and injured campers, many of them shoeless and still wearing pajamas from their mad dash out of their bunks in the middle of the night.
In between comforting the ‘cold, wet and miserable’ survivors, both kids and adults, Ruskan directed Army Blackhawk 60s and MH-65s to pockets of survivors to begin bringing them to safety.
‘My main job was triaging, and then my second job I kind of picked up was just trying to comfort these kids and the family members and counselors,’ Ruskan said.
‘I mean this is like probably the worst day of their life. They’re in a terrible situation, they have friends and family unaccounted for, missing, unknown status, and they’re looking to me and all the rescuers for guidance and comfort.’
He said one of the hardest parts was having family members asking him help finding missing loved ones and sharing in their humanity as they cry in his arms.
In an official statement, Camp Mystic confirmed that 27 campers and counselors perished in the floods. Five campers ages 8 and 9 have since been confirmed dead, with a counselor and 11 more girls still missing, officials said.
