Subj : Amateur Radio Newsline (D
To   : All
From : Daryl Stout
Date : Fri Aug 31 2018 07:59 pm

KICKER: SMALL RESCUE, BIG HEART

STEPHEN/ANCHOR: Our last story is another tale of a ham's involvement in
a rescue operation - but this one was very different, as we hear from
Caryn Eve Murray, KD2GUT.

CARYN: On a recent broadcast of "To Tell the Truth," an American TV quiz
show, Rick Gruber, KD7NHM, of Phoenix, Arizona told the truth - and a
story. It's the story of a very special rescue that happened four years
ago, when he spotted a drowning victim in a swimming pool he had come to
repair. At first, there was frantic struggling and splashing...but then
it stopped.

RICK: I walked over to him and I could see he had no movement at all. So
I reached over with a pipe and pulled him closer to the edge of the pool.
I brought him out and laid him on the ground and thought: "The poor guy.
It hasn't been that long, it's only been about a minute or so, I wonder
if I could give him CPR."

CARYN: Rick had saved a tiny ground squirrel - now limp and unconscious.
Draping him over a PVC pipe, Rick put his CPR and first aid training to
use - and began capturing it on video.

RICK: I just started doing some compressions on the side of his ribs with
my fingers and eventually after 30 or 40 seconds or so I saw a little bit
of water come out of his mouth and he spit it up, almost hiccupped, and
so I kept doing and I thought "wow it is actually working on him."

CARYN: As the squirrel came to, Rick stayed by his side.

RICK: I tried to talk to him real nice and comfort him, and keep him as
calm as I could to show him I wasn't a threat to him until he was fully
recovered.

CARYN: An hour later, the squirrel had revived completely, and scampered
off. Once the video hit YouTube, this selfless act went viral, grabbing
the attention of CNN, the Steve Harvey Show in Chicago, and even a
morning news show in Australia. This year, it landed Rick on TV's "To
Tell the Truth" on August 12. Meanwhile, Rick has been receiving hundreds
and hundreds of emails, thanking him for his life-saving kindness.

So what does this have to do with amateur radio? Well..nothing, really -
except that Rick has been a ham since 2001, and enjoys 2 meters, DMR,
DXing, and climbing the local mountaintops to call QRZ. Ah, and thanks
to that little squirrel, he's now got some company on those outdoor
trips:

RICK: "One of the best things to come out of that squirrel video is
that's how I met my wife."

CARYN: A woman in England, moved by the video, became his Facebook
friend, then his real-life friend and eventually - his life partner.
Her father, it turns out, had been a ham radio operator too.

The squirrel, however, did score an award for most QSLs, says Rick.

RICK: "I've made more QSOs from Facebook and from people messaging me
from around the world on Facebook, because of the squirrel video than
any QSOs I've ever had on ham radio."

For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Caryn Eve Murray, KD2GUT.

**

NEWSCAST CLOSE: With thanks to Alan Labs; Amateur News Weekly; the
ARRL; CQ Magazine; Hap Holly and the Rain Report; the Herald Times;
IARU Region 1; Irish Radio Transmitters Society; K2BSA; the Mad River
Radio Club; Northern Illinois DX Association; Ohio-Penn DX Bulletin;
QST Magazine; Southgate Amateur Radio News; Ted Randall's QSO Radio
Show; Wireless Institute of Australia; WTWW Shortwave; and you, our
listeners, that's all from the Amateur Radio Newsline.

Please send emails to our address at newsline@arnewsline.org. More
information is available at Amateur Radio Newsline's only official
website at www.arnewsline.org.

For now, with Caryn Eve Murray, KD2GUT, at the news desk in New York,
and our news team worldwide, I'm Stephen Kinford, N8WB, in Wadsworth,
Ohio, saying 73, and as always, we thank you for listening.

Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) is Copyright 2018. All rights reserved.
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