COLUMBIA, TENN. (WTVF) — Two Columbia men are receiving a national hero award for saving a 25-year-old man with autism from the Duck River.
According to the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, which presents the award, Colin McNary ran into the Duck River in May 2025 and was swept downstream by the current.
On the south side of the boat ramp, 26-year-old Samuel Hardin Adcock and 41-year-old James Alan Garner, were with Garner’s family when they saw McNary get carried downstream.
Adcock immediately waded out to the channel and Garner instructed his two children to leave the water and go to their car before entering the water.
McNary eventually was swept to a calmer area of the river where Adcock caught up with him and grabbed him. McNary struggled to stay afloat and submerged Adcock, who pushed McNary away to get air.
After pushing and pulling McNary to a large tree root on the riverbank, they waited for first responders.
After being rescued, McNary, Adcock, and Garner were tired and cold but uninjured.
September 11, 2001 is a day most associate with terror and tragedy. Austin Pollack shares a story from that day about hope and persistence: the effort to save a little girl’s life – with an organ donation. The problem? The young patient was in Houston, and her life-saving liver here in Nashville. With the grounding of all civilian aircraft, how could it be done? “Nobody ever said this isn’t possible.”
- Rhori Johnston
