4 Franklin High students honored for rescue

A PEACEFUL place.

That's what the Schuylkill and Fairmount Park are to four young friends all too aware of the grittiness and danger that can be part of urban life.

Water rushing over the falls hushes the city. The trees offer a green shield.

The four students at Benjamin Franklin High School, at Broad Street near Spring Garden, often walk more than a dozen blocks to the river after school to play cards and just hang out.

"We have to get away from the harsh reality of the city," said Edward Cheeseborough, 17, a junior.

But on the bitterly cold and windy afternoon of Feb. 8, the four friends suddenly found their riverside reverie interrupted when a man plunged into the icy water.

The youths, all members of their school's Naval Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program, had been "throwing rocks, just chilling," recalled James Q. Robinson, 19, a senior who lives in East Germantown.

From their perch on a grassy fishing pier beneath an observation deck near Boathouse Row, they heard a splash and saw a man in the water with no clothes on, struggling to stay afloat.

"There were a lot of people standing around looking and taking pictures and saying, 'Look at that naked man swimming in the river,' " recalled Robinson.

"We didn't decide we had to act - we just acted."

JefferyHudson, 17, a junior, the smallest and fastest of the four, ran off to find help, leaving the other three to talk to the man in the river, encouraging him to hold on. Hudson ran to the nearby Waterworks Museum, where he told workers what was happening.

Hudson runs at the park every morning. "I guess it's in the blood," said Hudson, whose parents used to run track when they were students.

Someone radioed to Fairmount Park ranger Bob Govaeea, 23, who had been on the job only three months. Govaeea followed Hudson to the scene. One of the workers in the museum brought a rope from the basement.

The students tossed the rope out to the man struggling in the water. "But he kept slipping off" as he was being pulled in, recalled Cheeseborough.

That's when the students tied several knots in the rope so they could get a better grip.

The man was following their orders to stay close to the building and the rope, Govaeea said.

Senior Timothy Caddell, 18, said they were holding onto the rope and had almost pulled the man up when firefighters arrived and took over.

"They put a ladder over the wall and went down and got him," said Caddell.

The students said that the man visited them at school one day last month to thank them for helping to save him from the river. His name has not been released.

"He was saying that he was a strong believer in God and that he had a friend who was not a believer," Hudson recalled.

"He said his friend had told him if your God is so great, then why don't you jump in the river and see if he will save your life.

"I believe in God, too," added Hudson.

"But I wouldn't have jumped in the river to try to get someone else to believe."

"Almost witnessing death right in front of my eyes made me appreciate my life and the people I know," said Cheeseborough.

Cheeseborough, Hudson and Caddell all live in North Philadelphia.

Yesterday, the four student heroes were honored in a special "Recognition of Valor Ceremony" at their school.

Robinson, a JROTC Cadet Petty Officer 2nd Class, has joined the Army National Guard.

He starts basic training in October. He plans to study mechanical engineering at Community College of Philadelphia and then to join the ROTC program at Temple University.

Caddell, a JROTC Cadet Chief who intends to join the Army National Guard, plans to major in business when he begins classes at the same college in the fall.

Hudson, a JROTC Cadet Petty Officer 2nd Class, is a singer; in fact, he sang the National Anthem at yesterday's ceremony.

He hopes to attend either Ohio State, Penn State or Temple.

Cheeseborough, a JROTC Cadet Petty Officer 2nd Class, wants to join the Army National Guard after he graduates from high school next year.

He wants to become a professional wrestler.

Mayor Nutter, Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers and Mark Focht, executive director of the Fairmount Park Commission, all praised and gave plaques to the four.

"These young men represent - and they represent well," Nutter said to a crowded auditorium. "They happened to be in the right place at the right time, and they saved a life." *