A 13-Year-Old Scout Dove Into Rapids to Free His Trapped Leader’s Foot

It was meant to be the highlight of summer camp: a whitewater rafting trip through the rapids of Georgia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. For 13-year-old Devon Champenoy of Houston, Texas, it became the day he saved a man’s life. As the raft ran a stretch of class-3 rapids, scout leader David Lemley was thrown into the churning water—not once, but twice.

The second fall turned dangerous in an instant. Lemley’s foot became wedged under the raft seat while his head was held beneath the surface, pinned by the force of the current. In that moment, with seconds counting against him, Devon did not freeze. He dove into the rapids and worked Lemley’s trapped foot free, allowing kayakers to complete the rescue and pull him to safety. Lemley came away with a broken foot—and his life.

“For 13-year-old Devon Champenoy of Houston, Texas, it became the day he saved a man’s life.”

“I have no doubt that if Devon hadn’t released my foot I was going to die,” Lemley later told KHOU 11 News. The certainty in those words captures how close the outcome came to tragedy, and how decisively a teenager’s presence of mind changed it.

For his actions, Devon received the Honor Medal with Crossed Palms, one of fewer than 300 such awards in the entire history of the Boy Scouts, along with recognition from Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Now 15, he is working toward Eagle Scout. The medal will mark him for the rest of his life as someone who, at 13, met a moment most adults will never face—and answered it by diving straight into the danger to bring another person back.