WITTENBURG, NC — Carpenter Scott Lingerfelt and his crew were remodeling a lake house in Wittenburg on a recent morning when they heard cries. It was a squalling cat, someone said.
But Lingerfelt trained his ear.
“Nah,” he told his co-workers. “That’s not no cat.
“It’s a kid.”
“Help me!” the child hollered.
The frightened plea for help was coming from Lake Hickory, across the cove from the Wittenburg house on Swan Lane, where the Scott’s Carpentry crew was working late in the morning on Dec. 27.
Click Here: liverpool mens jersey
Lingerfelt didn’t hesitate. He didn’t take time to shed his heavy work boots or clothing. He just dove into the lake from the dock at a neighboring house. The water was a chilly 45 to 50 degrees, cold enough for hypothermia to set in during the 40-yard swim.
“It was freezing cold,” Lingerfelt told Patch. “It almost took my breath when I dove in.”
The young child’s life depends on my ability to get across the lake, he told himself. The adrenalin kicked in. With every stroke, he prayed, “Lord give me the strength to get to him, and keep us all safe. Just give me the strength. Lord help me get there.
“My boots were getting heavy,” he recalled. “It was like swimming with cinder blocks on your feet.”
Keep swimming, he commanded himself, reassuring the boy as he got closer.
“You’re going to be OK,” he said. “We’re going to get you. It’ll be OK.”
The 6-year-old is fine, and Lingerfelt and others who helped rescue the boy will be honored as heroes at a 12:30 p.m. Tuesday ceremony at the Alexander County Sheriff’s Office, 91 Commercial Park Ave., Taylorsville.
“I couldn’t sit back and let this go unnoticed,” Sheriff Chris Bowman told Patch. “I told them, ‘In my opinion, y’all are heroes.’ Of course, they said, ‘No, we’re not heroes.’ They said they’d do it again if they had to.”
While Lingerfelt was swimming, James Wycoff, the owner of the house he had been working on, called 911. Another carpenter, Jason Southerland, jumped in his pickup and drove to the other side, where he found the child’s 27-year-old brother, Aaron Bentley, plucking the youngster from the lake.
“We were coming in to him from both sides, trying to get to him,” Lingerfelt said. “He was scared to death when we got there. The cold was worse on him, being so small and a child, than me.”
The boy had fallen off the pier into about 15 feet of water and was barely hanging on when help arrived. He was carried to a waiting ambulance and taken to Catawba Valley Medical Center in Hickory for evaluation.
“In my opinion, the young man would not have lasted long at all in that water. The good Lord above was looking after all of them,” Bowman said, adding if the child had fallen into the cold water a day earlier or a day later, nobody would have been around to hear his cry for help.
Lingerfelt doesn’t doubt the source of the super-human strength that propelled him across the lake.
“I was tired. I was drained. But I made it,” he said. “I give all the glory to the Lord. He got me there. It was something else.”
It sure was, Bowman said.
“It feels good to report, for a change, something nice happening as far as being able to save a life,” the sheriff said. “Because in this day and time, it seems like us and law enforcement have to report bad things. I’ve always said that in our county, the citizens have never been hesitant to help out or save a life, and this right here backs me up.”