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| Tiny Rescuer |
 Four-year-old Carter Louisell wanted to go swimming while visiting his grandmother's house at Versluis Lake in Plainfield Township, Michigan, but his grandmother, Joan VanZee, told him it was too cold.
When Carter saw a man in the water, then, he knew something was wrong. He had, after all, been told it was too cold to go swimming. And the mane should have been in his nearby canoe. Carter knew that. "There's a man in the water," he told his grandmother.
VanZee had just taken her kayak out of storage a few days before and her equipment and life jacket were ready to go. After using binoculars to confirm that Carter did indeed see someone in the water, VanZee put on her life jacket and pulled kayak out into the water, headed for Phillip Storm, a 30-year old who had overturned his canoe and was in danger of drowning in the freezing waters.
"I got down on my knees and told Carter that man was going to drown if I didn't help him," VanZee told the Grand Rapids Press, noting that she was concerned about leaving Carter and his younger sister alone. "I just knew I was supposed to to do this. There was this whole sense of trust that the kids would be all right if I did this."
Police say Storm wasn't wearing a life jacket. The National Safe Boating Council estimates that 80 percent of all boating fatalities come from drowning and in 90 percent of those cases, victims were not wearing life jackets.
Storm is estimated to have been in the water for 15 minutes before VanZee pulled him and his dog out of the water. He was treated for hypothermia and released from the hospital.
Carter and VanZee were awarded life-saving awards for their actions by the Kent County Sheriff's Department but Carter's mother, Kara Louisell, doesn't believe he understands that his actions saved a man's life. "I don't think he knows what he did," she told the Grand Rapids Press. "He's only four. He just saw the guy in the water and he told Grandma."
"To some, it might seem insignificant," Lt. Kevin Kelley of the Kent County Sheriff's Department said. "But he definitely recognized a life-threatening situation and told his grandmother.
"We're always trying to teach kids that if they see something wrong, they should tell a grown-up," Kelley continued. "This is a good example of a young man doing the right thing."
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