| Teen's rescue of trapped driver celebrated
By Joe Tone
Record Staff Writer
Published Thursday, April 29, 2004
 Two
days after 19-year-old Grayson Moyse dove into Smith
Canal and rescued a man trapped in his sinking car, a
short, buried newspaper blurb reported that unnamed citizens
had rescued the driver.
"You're an unsung hero," Moyse's mom told
him.
Not anymore.
On Wednesday, Moyse's Lincoln High School classmates,
the school district's superintendent and Stockton Mayor
Gary Podesto honored him for his rescue of a man fire
officials say would have died without the teen's help.
"It was heroic," Bill Costanza, a battalion
chief with the Stockton Fire Department, said Wednesday. "Without
that action, a life probably would have been lost."
It was a week ago. Moyse was watching TV with his mom,
Colette, when they heard two loud bangs. Moyse, a lanky
young man, figured a car had backfired, but his mom made
him check it out.
When he reached the levee near their home -- they live
near the canal at Walnut Street and Buena Vista Avenue
-- he saw a car sinking into the water. Steven Zapata,
44, had been driving drunk and dumped his car into the
canal, police said.
Moyse, who has no formal rescue training, yelled for
his mom to call 911. He grabbed a lug wrench and sprung
into the canal. When he couldn't break the driver's side
window, he slid his thin arm into the slightly open window
and unlocked the door. He opened it, unbuckled Zapata's
seat belt and pulled him ashore to safety.
His quick thinking and fast action surprised even his
mother, who quickly began telling of her son's heroics.
Grayson Moyse, who will attend San Joaquin Delta College
next year, seems a shy teenager. Despite wanting the
world to know, he said he wasn't sure how to tell the
story without bragging.
The next day, when a friend asked what he did the night
before, he told him casually, "I saved a guy's life."
But in high school, telling one means telling all, and
by this week, strangers were shaking Moyse's hand at
school. The attention swelled, and it culminated Wednesday
at a senior assembly.
As he walked in front of his classmates, a medal around
his neck, one screamed, "You're the man," and
the others cheered him loudly and spontaneously.
The mayor and a representative from the office of Assemblyman
Greg Aghazarian, R-Stockton, gave him certificates, and
his mom, a surprise addition to the assembly, planted
a proud-as-can-be kiss squarely on his cheek.
* To reach reporter Joe Tone, phone (209) 546-8272 or
e-mail jtone@recordnet.com |
Stockton,
CA 
Canal