Reverend Joseph E. Kurtz, D.D. Bishop | Archdiocese of Louisville

On January 17, Brandon Malone, a 17-year-old senior at DeSales High School, found himself in an unexpected rescue mission. As he walked with his girlfriend to McNeely Lake Park for a quiet evening by the frozen lake, events took a dramatic turn.

Malone recounted that they had just reached the dock when his girlfriend noticed two girls struggling after falling through the ice. Without hesitation, Malone rushed to their aid.

"I remember booking it over there," he said during an interview at DeSales. "I couldn’t sit there and just watch someone drown or get hypothermia."

One girl was nearly out of the water when Malone arrived. He gave her his jacket and went further onto the ice to help the second girl. In the process, he too fell into the frigid water.

Struggling beneath the surface, Malone and the girl worked to break free from under the ice. Panic set in as time passed, but thoughts of his grandmother provided him with strength.

“She’s an angel,” he said about his grandmother. “When something like that happens, you just don’t know if that’s your last day.”

He attributed their eventual escape to divine intervention: “God came into play,” he stated. With adrenaline surging, they managed to clear a path back to shore as firefighters arrived on scene.

Reflecting on the incident later in a theology class discussion led by Deacon Chris McDonell at DeSales, Malone felt that being there at that moment was not coincidental: "That was not just something out of the blue."

Mayor Craig Greenberg acknowledged Malone's bravery on January 28 at B.A. Colonial restaurant near DeSales High School. The Okolona Fire Department also recognized him on January 29 at DeSales for his heroic actions.