Thursday, May 28, 2009

Orangeman Saves Woman From Drowning

Kudos to former Orangemen and current Sacramento King Donte' Greene, who peformed from off-the-court heroics over Memorial Day weekend. KHTK Radio in Sacremento first broke the story, and Mike Waters/Donna Ditota relayed the information in their Post Standard blog.

It appears that a woman, who did not know how to swim, fell out of a boat. Greene saw her struggling, jumped into the water and pulled her to safety. Whatever accolades Greene may receive for his past and future basketball endeavors, nothing there will be more significant than the life he had saved.

My hat is off to you Donte'.

Last summer I had come across an old newspaper article from August 12, 1918 from the Syracuse Herald. Our Mr. Greene was not the first former Orangemen to perform lifesaving heroics.

Herman Brickman was the top reserve forward on the Syracuse 1917-1918 National Champion basketball team, and also a tackle on the Syracuse football team. He would later become a successful labor lawyer.

But in the summer of 1918, Brickman saw a Mr. Stack struggling in the water in Raritan Bay, New Jersey. Stack was 3/4 of a mile off shore, and Brickman swam out to save him. Panicking, Stack would not cooperate with Brickman as he tried to bring him back in, struggling with him for 20 minutes in the water. Brickman eventually got him close enough to the shore, where others could help.

Brickman collapsed himself from the struggles, and it took an hour for the local physicians to revive him.

I thought Brickman deserved some recognition these 91 years later, in honor of the heroics of Donte' Greene.

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