thedrifter
07-25-07, 07:32 AM
Fox Valley Marine might receive honors for rescue
July 25, 2007
By DAVE GATHMAN STAFF WRITER
SOUTH ELGIN -- When Louise Gilles heard that her son, Marine Corps Cpl. Jared Bultinck, had risked his life rescuing a man from drowning, she wasn't all that surprised. He already served one year in Iraq, driving convoys through the threat of roadside bombs. He has volunteered to learn how to defuse such bombs during his next stint in the corps. And, heck, he has been saving people's lives since he was 16.
Bultinck, a South Elgin native and a 2004 graduate of St. Edward Central Catholic High School in Elgin, is assigned to the Marine Corps air station in Cherry Point, N.C. He was swimming in the Atlantic Ocean in Pine Knolls Shores, N.C., on Memorial Day Weekend when a 19-year-old Liberian tourist began drowning. He has been nominated to receive the Navy-Marine Corps Medal, awarded to sailors and Marines who show exceptional heroism in a nonbattlefield situation.
"I was at the beach with my wife, Porsche," Bultinck said in a telephone interview Friday. "She was back on the sand. I was in the water, just about 20 or 30 feet from the shore."
Though a strong swimmer, he said, he was trying not to go out beyond where his feet could touch the bottom, because treacherous rip tides develop along that coast this time of year, and two other Marines had drowned nearby during the previous three weeks. In fact, one -- based at the same base as Bultinck -- had died May 5 while trying to rescue two young children struggling in a riptide. The children survived but the rescuer didn't.
"The (Liberian) kid was about 60 feet off shore. Porsche said he yelled for help about three times. I never heard anything, but I noticed that his head went underwater and his arms went straight up."
Bultinck swam to the 5-foot-10, 150-pound youth, swam underneath him, and holding his own breath, pushed the youth from below until the boy's head was above water. He said he could feel the powerful current pulling at his own legs as he did so. Then he wrapped his arms around the boy and swam through 2- to 3-foot-high waves to shore, he said.
Bultinck said he never thought about the Marine drownings. "All that was going through my head was, 'I better do something or that guy's not coming out of the water.' "
"Jared is quite an amazing young man," said his mother Louise Gilles. "When he was about 15 or 16, he was on a Boy Scout hike in Montana. The other boys got altitude sickness and started getting disoriented. He tied them together with bungee cord and guided them over the mountain. Then a summer snowstorm came up and he put up a tent and got them all under shelter.
"I didn't even hear about all this until we were attending a Boy Scout honor court later and one of the other parents said, 'That was an amazing thing your son did.' All he had told us when he came home was that some of the young Scouts had some trouble with the altitude."
Jared's brother David is in the Army and served a tour in Iraq at the same time as Jared. Sister Jessica just got out of the Navy.
Jared said he plans to become a career Marine and learn how to be a bomb-defusing technician. "I love the corps. I love the job. I just want something to challenge me a little more, and when they make me retire in 20 years, I don't want to be a truck driver."
Ellie
July 25, 2007
By DAVE GATHMAN STAFF WRITER
SOUTH ELGIN -- When Louise Gilles heard that her son, Marine Corps Cpl. Jared Bultinck, had risked his life rescuing a man from drowning, she wasn't all that surprised. He already served one year in Iraq, driving convoys through the threat of roadside bombs. He has volunteered to learn how to defuse such bombs during his next stint in the corps. And, heck, he has been saving people's lives since he was 16.
Bultinck, a South Elgin native and a 2004 graduate of St. Edward Central Catholic High School in Elgin, is assigned to the Marine Corps air station in Cherry Point, N.C. He was swimming in the Atlantic Ocean in Pine Knolls Shores, N.C., on Memorial Day Weekend when a 19-year-old Liberian tourist began drowning. He has been nominated to receive the Navy-Marine Corps Medal, awarded to sailors and Marines who show exceptional heroism in a nonbattlefield situation.
"I was at the beach with my wife, Porsche," Bultinck said in a telephone interview Friday. "She was back on the sand. I was in the water, just about 20 or 30 feet from the shore."
Though a strong swimmer, he said, he was trying not to go out beyond where his feet could touch the bottom, because treacherous rip tides develop along that coast this time of year, and two other Marines had drowned nearby during the previous three weeks. In fact, one -- based at the same base as Bultinck -- had died May 5 while trying to rescue two young children struggling in a riptide. The children survived but the rescuer didn't.
"The (Liberian) kid was about 60 feet off shore. Porsche said he yelled for help about three times. I never heard anything, but I noticed that his head went underwater and his arms went straight up."
Bultinck swam to the 5-foot-10, 150-pound youth, swam underneath him, and holding his own breath, pushed the youth from below until the boy's head was above water. He said he could feel the powerful current pulling at his own legs as he did so. Then he wrapped his arms around the boy and swam through 2- to 3-foot-high waves to shore, he said.
Bultinck said he never thought about the Marine drownings. "All that was going through my head was, 'I better do something or that guy's not coming out of the water.' "
"Jared is quite an amazing young man," said his mother Louise Gilles. "When he was about 15 or 16, he was on a Boy Scout hike in Montana. The other boys got altitude sickness and started getting disoriented. He tied them together with bungee cord and guided them over the mountain. Then a summer snowstorm came up and he put up a tent and got them all under shelter.
"I didn't even hear about all this until we were attending a Boy Scout honor court later and one of the other parents said, 'That was an amazing thing your son did.' All he had told us when he came home was that some of the young Scouts had some trouble with the altitude."
Jared's brother David is in the Army and served a tour in Iraq at the same time as Jared. Sister Jessica just got out of the Navy.
Jared said he plans to become a career Marine and learn how to be a bomb-defusing technician. "I love the corps. I love the job. I just want something to challenge me a little more, and when they make me retire in 20 years, I don't want to be a truck driver."
Ellie