Into the Frozen Water

On January 13, 1982, Air Florida Flight 90 clipped the 14th Street Bridge moments after takeoff from Washington National Airport and plunged into the ice-choked Potomac River. A blizzard had paralyzed the capital. Seventy-eight people were on board. Only a handful survived the impact, clinging to wreckage in water barely above freezing.

Lenny Skutnik, a twenty-eight-year-old office worker at the Congressional Budget Office, stood among the crowd of bystanders on the riverbank. A rescue helicopter lowered a lifeline to the survivors, but one woman — Priscilla Tirado — was too weak and hypothermic to hold on. She lost her grip and slipped beneath the surface.

Skutnik did not deliberate. He tore off his coat and boots and dove into the Potomac. The water was so cold it would have stopped most people's breath. He swam through chunks of ice, reached Tirado, and pulled her to shore. He was not a trained rescuer. He was not paid to be there. He simply saw someone drowning and refused to watch.

Two weeks later, President Reagan honored Skutnik at the State of the Union address — the first civilian ever recognized from the gallery in that setting.