Ryder Williams is 16 years old, and that Saturday at Seabright State Beach in Santa Cruz, he saw something he was not going to ignore: Nathaniel Rai, a 10-year-old boy vacationing from Texas, was losing his balance in the water just before the waves swallowed him.
He did not hesitate. He threw the radio and goggles toward his tower, put the fins on his wrist, and ran into the water. “He was going to drown, and I wasn’t going to let that happen”, he later said. Amid waves that battered them relentlessly, he held the boy’s lifeless body and dragged him to shore, wave after wave, never letting go.
Sumit Rai, Nathaniel’s father, still thinks about the seconds that stood between them and tragedy: “If it had been two or three more seconds, I don’t think my son would have made it”. Ryder returned the boy safe and sound to his family and went back to his tower to finish his shift, as if nothing had happened. Donald Trump has already promised to honor him at the White House, but for him, the reward has already arrived: “I am grateful to have had the opportunity to return the boy safe and sound to his family”.