The Air Force officer who last year dashed to the rescue of two Zambian girls drowning near Victoria Falls will be honored by Zambia’s president.
Col. Keith E. Andrews is to receive a medal in May for pulling the teens to shore after they fell into the fast-moving waters of the Zambezi River, just 180 feet from where Victoria Falls plunges 360 feet.
“People keep calling me a ‘hero.’ I don’t want to be a hero,” said Andrews, chief of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance with the 607th Air and Space Operations Center at Osan. “I tell everybody the same thing: I just know that God put me in the right place and the right time.”
At the time of the March 8 rescue, Andrews was a lieutenant colonel and a student at the U.S. Air Force’s Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. He was one of about 20 students in Africa on a two-week regional studies trip.
The trip included a sightseeing stop at Victoria Falls. It was a hot, sunny early afternoon with a heavy mist thrown up by the cascading falls.
“Very beautiful,” he said. “You see the falls coming down. Water’s everywhere.”
He was about 10 feet from shore when he stopped so a companion could snap his photo, with the river and the falls in the background.
A teenage girl sat on a rocky outcropping near the water talking on a cell phone.
“Being a dad, I had my dad radar on, thinking she’s close to that water,” Andrews said.
Two other young women came along and the three chatted. Just as Andrews turned away to take the photo he heard two splashes, then loud screams.
“I saw big eyes, and they were reaching for their life,” he recalled. “The water was sweeping them away.”
One girl clung to the leg of the one nearest shore, who in turn was straining for a handhold but couldn’t reach shore because the current was drawing her back. The third stood on the shore nearby, screaming hysterically, Andrews said.
He said he dashed to the girls in about two bounds, clasped a rock to anchor himself to shore, and thrust his right arm toward them.
He caught the nearest girl’s wrist, and, in a single motion, lurched rearward, hauling them both from the water.
“I don’t know where I got the strength to do that,” he said. “[The current] was sucking her away pretty fast.”
Shaken and crying, the girls bowed their thanks and said something in a local dialect.
The morning of graduation day at the air war college, the student body handed Andrews a framed photo of the rescue, signed by all of them. More recently, he learned that Zambian President Rupiah Bwezani Banda is to present him a medal May 25 in Lusaka on Africa Freedom Day.
Although the incident occurred nearly a year ago, Andrews can still choke up when he thinks about it. He has a 15-year-old daughter.
“Couldn’t sleep at all that night,” he said. “Thinking what would have happened if I hadn’t have been there, if those two girls went over the falls … and thinking, if something like that happened to my daughter, hoping someone would be there to help her.”
Source [Stars and Stripes.]
🙂 To God be the glory, and it’s good he gave God the glory. Though this airforce officer is a spy by description. Great article, the child that saved the baby should also get a medal of honour.
We need more people like you Andrews. May the lord be with you.
Yeah here is another nyambe the hero he deserves the medal what he did was heroic.:-?
#1What does it matter if he is a spy? If a spy saved my children, that is all I care for. You make a good point though that the child that saved the baby deserves recognition as well.
As a special force,a commando trained in the US,i can tell you,these Americans are brave and well trained.Even Joseph Kabila was trained in the US and South Korea.Colonel Andrew,bravo,bravo!!!My the blessings from beyond the stars be upon you and your daughter.It’s duty and country and honour.
We give God the Glory. The positioned the officer at the right time. I hope those girls are saved knowing very well that God saved their lives.
God bless this man, they are few like him.
I wish I could throw a banquet for him.
Ohhhh my God wow…… and as he says he was in the right place, at the right time. Just reading this traumatized me, then how about being the the situation. God bless this gentleman^:)^
Good that he was out spying and ended up doing some good.
These young girls were looking for attention from this tourist, but the story changed.
What can i say ……..Andrews you are the hero.
Good going, Keith! All of your brother Black Hills Bandits would like to award you the “Outer Limits Nose Cone of Distinction” and set you up to “snort some cup.” Dude, no kidding, you are a real hero in the very best tradition of the Tuskegee Airmen. Just proud to know you. Yeah, Jack!
God bless that man and all his family ,your parents must to be proud of you !!!!!
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