Indiana's 'Rope Warrior' awarded for saving drowning teen with his jump rope
Sheena Goodyear | CBC News | Posted: February 3, 2025 10:27 PM | Last Updated: February 3
'I happened to have the perfect tool for getting him out of the water,' says David Fisher
Professional jump-roper David Fisher has often imagined what it would be like to use the tools of his trade to save someone's life, but he never thought it would actually happen.
Fisher, who goes by the stage name The Rope Warrior, received the Lifesaving Citizen Award from the town of Westfield, Ind., for using his jump rope to pull a drowning young man from the icy waters of a local pond in December 2024.
"I've always had these crazy scenarios of how a rope could be used to defend or, you know, save," Fisher, who has written fiction books about a rope-skipping superhero, told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal.
"Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think something like that would actually happen — but it did."
Teen runs after goose-chasing dog
Fisher says it was a chilly day in mid-December when his son, 19-year-old Felix Fisher, heard someone screaming outside and went to see what the trouble was.
It appeared a woman and her teenage son were walking their dog, when the pooch slipped away to chase geese and fell into a partially frozen pond across the street.
Felix rushed out to help get the pooch back, Fisher says, while his dad ran upstairs to put on something warm.
By the time Fisher came back downstairs, Felix had returned with bad news. The young man, 18, had gone out on the ice after the dog and fallen in too.
"That's when I grabbed the ropes and we both headed for the ice," Fisher said.
Double-Dutch to the rescue
When they arrived at the pond, the dog had swum to shore, but the young man was treading water and screaming, Fisher says.
While his son called 911, Fisher says he started slowly moving his way out on the ice, rope in hand, until he was about five metres away from the young man. He left his second rope on the shore, in case he went down too and someone needed to pull him out.
Then he put his double-Dutch skills to use.
Double-Dutch is when two people, called the turners, swing ropes around a jumper in the middle. Felix says he's turned double-Dutch many times before, so he's had a lot of practice tossing one end of the rope to a partner.
"I knew exactly, you know, the distance I needed to be away from him to get him to the other end of the rope," he said. "So when I finally arrived at that point, I flung him the rope and he moved a little bit to get to it and then grabbed onto it."
He tossed it roughly five metres, he says, and pulled the young man up onto the ice. The whole thing went down in less than a minute.
"It had all happened pretty quick, but it kind of seemed like it was in slow motion," Fisher said.
Fisher and Felix took the family back to their house, and gave the young man some warm, dry clothes, as they waited for paramedics to arrive.
The father-son duo were both honoured in a ceremony at city hall by Westfield Mayor Scott Willis and Fire Chief Rob Gaylor.
"I've always known that Westfield is filled with brave, kind-hearted people, but what David and Felix did is absolutely remarkable," Willis said in a written statement, posted to Facebook.
"Their courageous actions are the definition of what it looks like to care for your neighbour. We are proud to honor them with this well-deserved award."
Fisher says the young man and his mother were at the ceremony and expressed their gratitude. The city has not released their names.
"I'm just very thankful that my son was outside because I'm not sure anybody else would have heard anything," Fisher said.
"And that, you know, I happened to have the perfect tool for getting him out of the water and the background to be able to use it."