PERU – A telling hug Thursday morning spoke volumes between a 4-year-old girl and her 6-year-old brother as they sat together between their parents on a gym bench at Peru Elementary School.
Last month, the 50-pound boy, Jude Prue, pulled his 30-pound sister Jennifer out of Rangeley Lake immediately after the girl tumbled off the family dock and was swallowed by the icy water.
During an emotional award ceremony Thursday, Peru Fire Chief Bill Hussey and Oxford County Sheriff’s Sgt. Timothy Holland recognized the Peru kindergartner on behalf of the school.
After talking about the incident, Hussey made the boy an honorary member of the Peru Fire Department, giving him a patch larger than his shoulder.
Then, as several adults wiped tears from their eyes, Hussey, standing beside Jude, read the words off a plaque that he and Holland presented to the boy.
In a soft voice cracking with emotion, Hussey said, “Jude Prue, this commemorates the selfless heroism you demonstrated in saving your sister, Jenni, when she fell into Rangeley Lake on May 14, 2005. Presented by Peru Elementary School.”
The stunned boy stood speechless while everyone applauded, including his parents, Jim and Stephanie Prue, and his grandparents, Lester and Phyllis Prue, who were sitting on the front row bench.
Before the ceremony, Stephanie Prue said that on May 14, the family was staying with her parents, John and Claire MacDonald, at their Rangeley Lake camp near South Bog on the Oquossoc side.
The ice had just left the lake the week before, she said.
“Jude and Jenny were playing on the dock while Jimmy was working on Dad’s boat at the other end of the dock,” Stephanie Prue said. She was inside the camp. The dock is about 30 yards long.
“Jimmy was at the end of the dock, and it never occurred to me, that with him there, one would fall in,” she said of the children.
Neither child, she said, has yet learned how to swim.
Then came the moment every parent dreads.
Jim Prue said he heard a splash and looked, and saw their daughter’s head in water up to her chin, with her hand outstretched.
“But Jude had pulled her all the way out of the water by the time I got there,” Jim Prue said.
Hussey and Holland said they were amazed at the boy’s reaction.
“He reacted very quickly, without any thinking, to save his sister. I’ve been to a lot of incidents where a lot of adults just freeze. They don’t know how to react,” Hussey said.
“We are very proud of him,” he added.
“It takes a lot of training for police and firefighters to react instantly, and for a 6-year-old to do that, it’s phenomenal,” Holland said.
The rescue
After the ceremony, Jude explained, “We were feeding the fish by pretending to throw rocks in the water, but she fell in.”
“I saw her fall in. She slipped. All you could see was her head. Then she was floating – she could walk without even touching the ground,” he said.
“The water was cold, but I grabbed her by both hands and pulled. She’s not that heavy. I could carry her up,” he added.
Since then, Stephanie Prue said she and her husband are going to enroll the children in a learn-to-swim class at Worthley Pond this summer.
The family has also been calling Jude “Hero Boy” or “Hero Guy.”
“I call him Hero Guy,’ and he kind of grins. One time, I was joking with him and singing, and I called him Jude, and he said, That’s Hero Guy, Mom,'” she said.
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