Redemption on the river

Ranger's rescue helped save boy

A young first-season park ranger saved a little boy's life last summer and found within that a measure of redemption for a past tragedy in his own life.

Kevin Hammonds, 24, was the first person to reach the lifeless body of Jacob Feightner, 3, near the bank of the Middle Fork of the Flathead River on May 26. A long list of other heroes contributed, too, to saving the boy's life over the course of several hours.

Seven months and much reflection later, Hammonds still wonders at the circumstances that put him where he needed to be that day.

Feightner was with his family from Utica, Ohio, trying out the river in their canoe for a short trip. The canoe flipped. Jacob's brother, Jonathan, 5, and his father, John, 38, bobbed up.

But Jacob had vanished.

Hammonds and two other Glacier National Park backcountry rangers had stopped at the Halfway House restaurant for dinner after returning from a three-day trek in the backcountry. They heard about a rescue effort getting under way on the river and hustled to the area near the Essex bridge.

Hammonds put in his kayak and began paddling, looking for a little boy in a life jacket. Other rescuers frantically searched the banks.

The water was fast and very cold. Hammonds had recently taken a CPR refresher course and reviewed the steps in his head, trying not to think of the slim chance a 3-year-old child would have in that water.

"I was really hoping to see him resting on the side of the river, scared and maybe crying," Hammonds said at the time. That was the hopeful side of his journey. Realistically, he said, "I knew it was going to be a bad kind of scene."

After a mile or so, he turned a corner in the river and "made out a life jacket in the distance."

Jacob was snagged on a large rock just below the water surface on the left bank. Hammonds described what looked like an irreversible tragedy.

"His legs were hanging in the river. His arms were sprawled out. His lips were blue. His eyes were open and dilated," Hammonds said.

"He looked as dead as dead can be."

Hammonds waded out in waist-deep water to Jacob.

"I kind of had to throw him over my shoulder and scurry up the rocks," he said. He found a flat rock, unbuckled the life jacket from Jacob's limp body, and started a couple of rescue breaths and then chest compressions and regular breaths.

Minutes later, the ALERT helicopter from Kalispell Regional Medical Center arrived. While rescuers made the torturously long trek from the helicopter to Jacob, Hammonds continued another 10 minutes of resuscitation efforts on the unresponsive child.

"It was obvious he wasn't coming around … I wasn't going to stop."

An intense and lengthy medical effort followed. The CPR that Hammonds began continued for an astonishing two hours as rescuers carried him to the helicopter and flew him to Kalispell Regional Medical Center. Emergency-room physician Dr. Scott Rundle and others refused to stop working until Jacob's heart restarted.

Medically, the team had accomplished the virtually impossible. Jacob eventually returned to Ohio, fully recovered.

"I don't even know if I can sum up what it's like … having an opportunity to participate in something like that," Hammonds said.

His father is a doctor in Kentucky.

"He's seen a lot of things that did not turn out as well. He has a deeper appreciation" of what happened, Hammonds said.

His parents, Donald and Pamela Hammonds, had watched their son's passion for kayaking grow to consuming levels after high school.

"It took over my life for a few years," he said. He was spending 200 days a year on the water.

"My dad said, 'I'm glad to see that all that kayaking paid off,'" Hammonds said.

The Flathead County Sheriff's Office gave him a citation for his rescue. The National Park Service has nominated him for a national award.

"I think I got a handshake from everybody who worked in the park," he said.

He might not have even been in the park last summer.

Hammonds wanted to work for the Forest Service on fire jobs in Colorado or near Red Lodge. He pestered the agency for months and got no reply. He applied for a ranger job in the park as a backup plan. When he was offered a job in Glacier and hadn't heard back from the Forest Service, he accepted.

The day he packed to move to Glacier, both of the jobs he wanted materialized. He went to Glacier anyway.

"I hate going back on my word," he said.

The summer season began miserably, rainy and cold for the first few weeks.

And then Hammonds saved a little boy.

"Maybe I was supposed to be there this summer," he said.

Word about the rescue has gotten out in Vail, Colo., where Hammonds is working this winter.

"It's been a story to tell … when people say, 'What did you do this summer?'" he said.

Those who know Hammonds well understand that the story has particular poignance for him.

In 1999, he was running some waterfalls with kayaking friends near Fort Collins, Colo.

A friend went first over the waterfall.

"He got stuffed up under some cliffs" in a cavernous area of the river.

"There was nothing we could do," Hammonds said.

His friend drowned.

"He just happened to have gone first," Hammonds said. It could as easily have been him.

Now, he wonders if he was supposed to be around when little Jacob Feightner needed him.

"For me, in terms of this whole deal, there is some sort of redemption for myself," he said.

He's not sure where that will take him yet.

He plans a trip to Ecuador this winter to "climb some volcanoes." He's learning Spanish and looking forward to the solo trip.

He'll take with him a new kind of confidence that comes from the unparalleled experience of helping to save another person's life.

"It makes me feel I can accomplish anything, do anything," Hammonds said.

Reporter Chery Sabol may be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at csabol@dailyinterlake.com