‘There was no hesitation; it was an instinct’: Off-duty firefighter jumps in to save man drowning in river

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT/Gray News) - One man is being praised as a hero after he saved another man from drowning in a North Carolina river on Saturday night.

Steve Hunt is a captain with the New Hanover County Fire Department who was off-duty when he saw a man fighting for his life in the Cape Fear River.

In response to the rescue, Hunt said he was simply doing his job. He didn’t hesitate to jump in the water, especially since a man’s life was on the line.

“There was no hesitation; it was an instinct,” Hunt said. “I’m calling for him to reach for my hand. And he’s just not, he’s not swimming well at all. His head is going under, and then he would get up just for a moment, and then it would go under.”

Hunt said the rescue didn’t come easy. That’s because the man he was trying to save did not want to be saved at first.

“He starts just pulling for the river, and saying, ‘Let me go, just let me go. I can’t go. Just let me go. I want to die,’” Hunt said.

But at no time was Hunt ever going to let the man go. He said he believed the man, whose name is unknown, was trying to end his life that night.

But Hunt said he did everything he could to make sure the man would live.

“I was trying to keep him focused on anything else other than, you know, the bad stuff,” Hunt said. “I was like, ‘Hey, man, I know it’s kind of a weird time. But look at the battleship, how cool it looks. We got a view here that most people don’t get to have.’ It was kind of a peaceful moment in this weird chaos.”

Hunt’s girlfriend, Heather Miller, saw the whole thing happen.

She said she was terrified for her boyfriend’s life when he jumped, but wasn’t surprised by his course of action.

“I would expect nothing less. And I feel like anything that comes up where somebody needs help, he’s a given. It’s not a question. It’s just instinct,” she said.

Although she was scared at the time, she said she was glad he intervened.

“That man was obviously not in a good place that night,” Miller said. “If other people can read that story and find themselves asking, ‘Does my life matter?’ Yes. It does matter, so much that a stranger would risk their own.”

The stranger turned hero for one man in need chalked his actions up to “just doing his job.”

“I don’t know if I’m in on the hero part of it. But it’s nice. Anybody else that was here, wearing one of the uniforms, and I think probably half our community, would have done the same exact thing,” Hunt said.

Out of respect, WECT has not tried to identify the man who was treated on the scene.

Hunt said New Hanover County firefighters go through training for situations exactly like this one. Because of that, he said he felt more than prepared.

Ironically enough, Hunt was wearing a shirt that night that said “lifeguard” on it. He said he was meant to save the man’s life.

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