Carson-Newman Student Pulls 3-Year-Old Boy From Swift Creek Water, Praised as a Hero

A Carson-Newman University student is being praised as a hero after he pulled a 3-year-old boy from swift-moving creek water near the school's baseball complex in Jefferson City, Tennessee.

On the afternoon of Monday, September 15, Noah Mathews, a junior studying criminology at Carson-Newman, was walking a trail alongside Mossy Creek when something in the water caught his eye. "So, that tree right there that's in the water kind of submerged, kind of like a crescent almost," he told WVLT, describing what caught his attention — a 3-year-old boy clinging to the branch in the current.

Mathews didn't hesitate. "My immediate thought was just to get him out of that area, so he didn't fall in and get swept downstream or drown possibly," he said. "I kind of lower myself and prop myself up, so I can pull him up and pull him out of that area safely." Police later told Mathews the water in that section of the creek measured about four feet deep.

After pulling the child from the water, Mathews called campus security and stayed with the boy on a nearby bench, turning on cartoons on his phone to keep him calm. Jefferson City Police determined the boy has autism and had wandered away from a home near the creek unnoticed. Paramedics evaluated him and police reunited him with his mother; he was unharmed.

Mathews was humble about the rescue: "I did something to better someone's life, I guess." Of the boy, he added: "I would want him to know that God is looking out for him, and I hope that he can walk through life knowing that."