[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 9 (Tuesday, February 10, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S589]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          HONORING THE DEEDS OF MR. FRANK ``SKIP'' PETTIS III

 Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I ask you today to join me in 
honoring a native hero of Rhode Island, who, by his courage and 
unselfish interest in the well-being of someone he did not know, saved 
a man from nearly certain death.
  When Frank ``Skip'' Pettis III set off to work on January 27, he had 
no idea that he would return home a hero. Pettis, who owns Pettis 
Marina near Pawtuxet Cove in Warwick, RI, was working when he overheard 
radio conversations between the Coast Guard and tugboat operators about 
a kayaker who was declared missing in Narragansett Bay.
  Pettis jumped into one of the marina's 24-foot salvage boats and 
raced to the scene. There, he found Steven McGarry of Warwick, without 
a kayak or lifejacket, floating in the waves and clinging to a pair of 
empty bleach bottles, being used as traps. Mr. Pettis grabbed the half 
conscious and hypothermia-sticken McGarry but, unaided, was unable to 
lift him into the boat.
  Fighting the cold and wet of the waves and the weight of McGarry's 
body, Pettis waited for what must have seemed an eternity until 
firefighters arrived to help fish him out of the water. As Pettis put 
it later, ``All I could do was envision him just sliding out of my 
hands . . . I didn't want that vision stuck in my head for the rest of 
my life.'' McGarry, whose temperature had dropped to 82 degrees, was 
rushed to Rhode Island Hospital, where he was listed in critical 
condition. By the next day, thanks to Pettis' heroism, McGarry had 
sufficiently recovered to give thanks to his rescuer.
  On January 28, just a day after Pettis hoisted McGarry's nearly 
frozen body from the icy water, Mayor Lincoln Chafee declared ``Skip 
Pettis Day'' in Warwick to honor our local hero.
  Mr. President, Skip Pettis is a model for people across America. 
Hearing of a stranger in need, he joined in a desperate search for a 
man who, for all purposes, was lost at sea. Finding him, Pettis 
persevered alone in preventing McGarry's death until help arrived. Mr. 
Pettis' experience exemplifies a form of altruism that can seem rare 
today, and, as such, I believe his heroic actions should be 
honored.

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