Bend river rescuer awarded Carnegie Medal for heroism

A Bend paddleboarder who came to the rescue of a woman struggling in the Deschutes River near the Newport Avenue Bridge spillway said last year he didn’t consider himself a hero, just “somebody trying to help somebody out.”

But the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission respectfully disagreed, and Tanner Boslau is one of 18 civilians – children and adults, survivors and four who died – who have been awarded the Carnegie Medal for outstanding civilian heroism, the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission announced Tuesday.

The Carnegie Medal is given throughout the U.S. and Canada to those who risk their lives to an extraordinary degree while saving or trying to save the lives of others.

The latest 18 recipients bring to 57 the number of awards this year and to 9,971 the total since the Pittsburgh-based funds inception in 1904.

Commission Chairman Mark Laskow said each awardee or their survivor also receives a financial grant. Since the fund was stablished by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, $39.4 million has been given in one-time grants, scholarship aid, death benefits and continuing assistance.

According to the commission’s summary, Boslau saved Teresa Samano, 58, from drowning on Sunday, Aug. 7, 2016. She had been floating on an inner tube and reached the impoundment for the Pacific Power hydro dam and held to a buoyed cable spanning the river.

The 62-degree water was flowing toward the spillway, about 75 feet away, and Samano was about 20 feet from the nearest retaining wall. Bend police Lt. Nick Parker said Samano, exhausted by the strong river current, was threatening to let go of the cable.

Upstream on a paddleboard, Boslau, 30, heard Samano’s family called for help and paddled to the cable. He lowered himself, untangled the woman from the cable and inner tube, and directed her to hold onto his board as he sat atop it

Boslau then grabbed the cable with one hand and towed Samano to the nearest bank, where arriving police threw him a rope, and he maneuvered the board against the retaining wall. Police pulled Samano from the water, then helped Boslau to shore.

“I don’t look at it as a hero, just somebody trying to help somebody out,” said Boslau, a service advisor at Kendall Toyota, told NewsChannel 21 the next day.

But Parker, like many others, had a different view: “Without his efforts, this likely could have had a much different ending.”

For more information about the Carnegie Medal, or to nominate someone, visit http://www.carnegiehero.org.