[TNham] WBIR story

[Greg Williams]

http://www.wbir.com/News/news.asp?ID=18003

Cell phones wouldn't work when teachers tried to call for help during that
field trip to the Smoky Mountains on Friday. The only communication was a
ham radio that a 13 year old student brought along.

"We'd been there for probably 30 minutes to an hour, and a whole bunch of
people got in the water. I looked over and I saw Chris go under," explains
Jordan Webb on Saturday morning, remembering the fear he felt Friday, when
the cool waters of Abrams Falls turned cruel and the peaceful surroundings
became a problem.

Before he left for his field trip Friday morning, he says he looked at his
radio in his bedroom and thought, "well, I might need it for something."

A licensed ham radio operator for almost a year now, he kept the radio with
him in his backpack on the two and a half mile hike to the falls. He even
had it wrapped in a plastic bag inside his backpack, in case it rained. When
he saw his classmate in trouble, Jordan says he jumped in the water to help.
Then he remembered the radio.

"So I went and grabbed it and told one of the teachers that if I could get
to a high spot I might be able to get in communication with somebody," he
says. "So I just started running up the mountain."

He got to a high enough spot and made contact.

"I started calling out 'Break! Break!', which means life threatening
emergency," he explains. "When I heard someone I said, 'We're in Cades Cove
at Abrams Falls and one of the students is drowning!'"

The ham radio operator he talked with called for help, so Jordan's
resourcefulness got rescue crews to the trail. But they didn't arrive in
time to save Chris.

"It was a long walk back," Jordan says. "All the kids were just saying
stuff, you know, about how nice Chris used to be. He had a very different
smile from everybody else."

Because of Jordan and his ham radio, his classmate's body was recovered
within hours, not days. He won't forget what happened, but he's at peace
knowing he helped.

"Praise God I took it," he says.