By Donna M. Perry,Staff Writer
Shavoyae Brown and Tyler Warmack saved the life of a 2-year-old who went over the falls.

FAYETTE – Two camp counselors, one a cancer survivor and the other a basketball star, both in college, stepped into another role Tuesday: hero.

But neither Tyler Warmack, 21, of Charlotte, N.C., nor Shavoyae Brown, 19, of Hartwell, Ga. considers himself a hero. The men are credited with saving the life of a 2-year-old who went over the waterfalls at Smalls Falls on Tuesday and wasn’t breathing.

The counselors said Friday that they were in the right place at the right time and acted on instinct when they jumped into the falls in Letter E Township to help Zachary Larkin of New London, Conn.

The child and his family were dangling their feet in the water when Zachary slipped into the pool and immediately went over the waterfalls. The boy’s father, Tyler Bailey jumped in after his son.

Warmack and Brown, counselors at Camp Winnebago in Fayette, were leading eight 11-year-old boys down the side of the steep falls – which drop 55 feet and have pools of water at each level – when Brown heard someone yelling.

The two men moved the campers away from the water before jumping in and swimming to the waterfall area.

“I reached the rocks first, and I saw the baby fall down the second falls,” Warmack said. “The father had the child in his arms and was asking if anyone knew (cardiopulmonary resuscitation).”

The child was not breathing and had turned purple, Warmack said, by the time he arrived. He started CPR, while Brown held the child’s head and neck still and the father held the boy’s legs out of the water.

After a few times of CPR, Zachary threw up, Warmack said. As the camp counselor continued resuscitation, the child started coughing and moving, slowly at first. He then began to improve, Warmack said, but was still fading in and out.

Brown and Warmack said they just kept saying, “Zach, stay with us. Zach, you can do it. Come on, buddy.”

Zachary’s skin went from purple to a fairly normal color, Warmack said.

“We kept him warm with dry towels so his body temperature didn’t drop,” Brown said. “The water was pretty cold.”

Zachary was initially in critical condition, but on Friday was listed in good condition at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, a representative there said Friday.

Both Warmack and Brown are certified in first aid.

Warmack, a cancer survivor as a teenager, now a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studying economics, said he “loved working with kids.”

He had spent previous summers working with children with cancer before he applied to the Fayette camp this year.

Brown, hailed as a basketball star in high school and college in Georgia newspapers, is a junior at Emmanuel College in Franklin Springs, Ga., where he is majoring in middle grades education. He, too, is a survivor in his own right, having been involved in a serious car/truck accident this spring.

Brown thinks they were at Smalls Falls for a reason.

“I think it was just a simple fact that with being at camp with kids all day, if there is anything campers need, we’re there for them,” Brown said. “I don’t consider myself a hero.”

Their charges and others involved in the rescue thought differently. “I feel a lot safer with my counselor now,” Alex Greenzeig said Tuesday at Smalls Falls.

“They gave me a new name: The Beast,” Brown said. “because they think there is nothing I can’t do.”

“Everything that we did seemed instinctive,” Warmack said. “I do realize that saving the child’s life was a heroic act, but I don’t consider myself a hero.”