Scott Ruskan, who ran at Warren Hills High School and Rider University, is being hailed as a hero all across the country after helping save nearly 200 lives in the deadly flooding in central Texas.
The 26-year-old Ruskan, a rescue swimmer and Petty Officer with the United States Coast Guard, was dispatched on his first rescue mission ever this past Friday (July 4th), and he found himself in charge of triage at Camp Mystic, the Christian girls' summer camp that has suffered some of the worst of the devastating flooding, which has reportedly claimed more than 80 lives with several people still missing.
Ruskan was interviewed on ABC's Good Morning America on Monday morning.
"I got on scene, boots on the ground at Camp Mystic and discovered I was the only first responder there,'' Rusman told GMA. "I had about 200 kids, mostly all scared, terrified cold, having probably the worst day of their life. I just kind of need to triage them, get them to a higher level of care, and get them off the flood zone with a lot of the Army helicopters."
Ruskan, a former KPMG accountant, ran cross-country and track at Warren Hills (Class of 2017) and Rider (Class of 2021), directed Army Blackhawk 60s and MH-65s to survivors and helped get 165 people to safety, according to the New York Post.
Ruskan, who spearheaded this high-risk rescue mission under catastrophic conditions, was praised for his heroics by several high ranking officials in the U.S. government, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. On social media, Noem calling Ruskan an "American hero" whose "selfless courage embodies the spirit and mission of the Coast Guard."
Ruskan is a very humble hero, who gave credit to everyone on his crew by saying all their names during the GMA segment.
"I'm just doing a job,'' he told the NYP. "This is what I signed up for, and I think that any single Coast Guard rescue swimmer or any single Coast Guard pilot, flight mechanic, whoever it may be, would have done the exact same thing in our situation. That's what we were asked to do and we're gonna do it. Any one of us, if anyone else was on duty that day, they would have done the same thing as us. We just happened to be the crew that got the case."
According to the NYP, Ruskan enlisted in the Coast Guard in 2021, and after completing basic training, went to Aviation survival technician school in Petaluma, Calif., before being stationed in Corpus Christi, Texas. He had been on call since November after completing all his training, familiarizing himself with the Coast Guard's MH-65 helicopter, and enrolling in additional rescue swimming classes as he waited to be called into action.