Newsroom
‘You need to live’
Jack Logan and Bert Alexander died so two men could live. Because of their sacrifice, the Kiwanis International Foundation posthumously awarded the Conway, Arkansas, men the Robert P. Connelly Medal for Heroism.
Read also:
|
 |
Jack Logan (above, left and below, right), a Conway, Arkansas, dentist, participated in church missionary trips to talk about his faith and provide dental care for families in remote regions of the world. He and fellow Connelly Medal recipient Bert Alexander (below, left) died this past April while saving two other men in a Lake Nicaragua boating accident. |
|
Logan and Alexander had completed missionary work in Juigalpa, Nicaragua, and joined a fishing expedition with eight other companions on the 3,000-square-mile Lake Nicaragua. When the boat capsized, the anchor fell into the water and began pulling the boat down. Two passengers drowned, and the others clung to the tip of the boat—the only part remaining above water.
Two young men grabbed a cooler and began swimming toward a volcanic island they could see in the distance. But they immediately began to struggle, and Logan and Alexander took an oar from the boat and swam out to help. With the oar slipped through the cooler’s handle, the four men floated throughout the night and into the next day, but it became apparent the cooler could not continue to support four men.
Leaving personal messages for their families, Logan and Alexander told the others, “You need to live. We’re older, and you need to live,” and they pushed off the makeshift life raft, sacrificing their lives.
Logan and Alexander were nominated for the Connelly medal by the Kiwanis Club of Conway. |
