BERKELEY – Central Regional students Charles Tice and Nikolas DeVoe were honored at a recent Board of Education meeting for their selfless bravery. Both of them are cadets in the Junior ROTC program.
Master Sgt. Sherlock Grant, who supervises the cadets, presented these Certificates of Heroism to the boys.
“These medals of heroism are not easily won,” he said, explaining how the request for them go through several stations, making its way up to the Pentagon.
“Every individual cadet would have done the same thing if they were in their place,” he said.
Charles Tice explained how he happened upon a fight in the high school.
“Another student brought two steel balls in a sock in order to hurt another student,” he said. Faculty intervened, but when she started swinging the sock around, they backed up for their own safety.
“I turned a corner and saw her as she was swinging at one of my favorite teachers, so I took my bag off and bear hugged her and led her away,” he said. She tried to go back into attack mode, so he put her in an arm bar and put an end to the fight.
The incident happened last school year. Administration said that the student has since been expelled.
Nikolas DeVoe was honored for a lifesaving rescue he performed in June. He and a friend from out of town, Tom Picurro, were surfing when they saw three people stuck in a rip current. Nikolas grabbed the closest person, while Tom rode his board out to the farther two. Tom brought one of them in, and Nikolas went back out for the third.
However, on Sept. 25, he rescued another woman who was caught in a rip current.
“I came home from school, and walked to the beach to check the waves because I surf. I saw a man and a woman swimming. I figured they were too far out, so I stood and watched,” he said.
He estimated that they were about 90 feet out, and were trying to make their way in, but seemed to be having trouble. When the man got to shore, he started waving for help.
DeVoe said he then dropped off his shirt, socks and shoes by a beachgoer, and told him to watch his stuff and call 911. He then swam out and brought the woman back in.
