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Ocala pilot earns a new set of wings
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Location: Blogs Now We're Talking |
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| Posted by: Joe Byrnes |
3/14/2007 4:58 PM |
Among the many particulars — be they chance or providence — to which Bob Hughes, of Lakeville, Mass., owes his life, you can count the fact that one courageous Ocala teen is hooked on flying.
As a toddler, Jason Schappert watched planes at the Ocala airport. At 16 he took lessons. At 17 he got his pilot's license.
So it was that last year, after graduating from West Port High School, he entered Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts to study aviation.
On Feb. 10, he was out on frozen Long Pond in Lakeville with his landlady, Pam Perrotta, and her friend Ted Dubois, watching small planes touch down and take off from the lake. Schappert fell hard and bruised his hip.
But the next day, a Sunday, the two friends coaxed him back on the ice, where he shuffled about in his bedroom slippers. Dubois, camcorder in hand, planned to video the airplanes.
Instead, he would document a daring rescue.
Photo courtesy Jason Schappert and Ted Dubois.
Photo courtesy Jason Schappert and Ted Dubois.
They walked ashore briefly, around a long strip of open water, and then out onto the lake some 250 yards. Perhaps 100 yards farther out, two all-terrain vehicles sped toward the strip of water and went in nose first.
Dubois focused in and saw one of the men climb out on the far side. The other man, Hughes, could not pull himself up — the thin, slick ice kept giving way — and he screamed for help.
Perrotta called 911. Schappert immediately started walking — running was impossible — across the slippery ice. It was cracking as he neared the edge.
"I think my adrenaline got going. ... I didn't realize the danger of it," he told me on Monday, while home on spring break.
The 18-year-old remembered a survival program on the Discovery Channel and got low, distributing his weight.
"By the time I had gotten to him, he was just sinking up to his neck," Schappert said. He could not turn back "because then you just sat there and watched it happen, and that wouldn't be something to live with."
Hughes, a 51-year-old carpenter, was too exhausted to kick anymore. "Trying to breathe and trying to swim to the edge," he said, "it took everything out of me."
Perrotta was behind Schappert and emptied her camera bag and threw it to him. He lay on his belly and tossed the handle strap to Hughes, who grabbed it.
Weighted down in his water-logged coat and three layers of pants, Hughes dragged Schappert toward the edge and the ice sank under him, soaking his chest, but he did not give up. He sat on the ice and leaned backward, levering the 210-pound man to the surface.
Photo courtesy Jason Schappert and Ted Dubois.
Photo courtesy Jason Schappert and Ted Dubois.
Thanks in part to Dubois' video, Schappert was recognized as a hero throughout New England. The rescue briefly eclipsed even Anna Nicole Smith as the most popular video on CNN.com.
Bob Hughes gives Jason Schappert a 12-string guitar
in friendship and in gratitude for saving his life.
Photo courtesy Jason Schappert.
Since the rescue, Schappert and Hughes have become good friends, and the young pilot has earned another set of wings.
He's a guardian angel, Hughes said. "If this is the future of our country, then we've got a bright future, because this kid is unbelievable."
Rescue Video Footage
Joe Byrnes may be reached at joe@ocala.com or (352) 867-4112. |
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Comments (3)
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Re: Ocala pilot earns a new set of wings |
By Tobi on
3/16/2007 11:58 AM |
Great story...
It's so good to hear positive stories of the youth of today. |
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Re: Ocala pilot earns a new set of wings |
By JoAnne Guswiler on
5/17/2007 11:11 AM |
Wonderful story....Makes me feel so proud of this young man, who could have lost his own life, but
risked it to save this man. Good for you Jason! It's great to hear about the good our young people do... Get so tired of "drugs and gangs". |
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Re: Ocala pilot earns a new set of wings |
By hunter on
7/30/2007 8:04 PM |
| hes awsome not only is he a hero hes an awsome camp consler |
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