Shining Moments: 'Do my part'
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"The whole world is coming for the Olympics, and I wanted to do my part to show the world something good," said Drake Self, Quailbluff Ward, Logan Utah Mount Logan Stake, explaining why he became an Olympic volunteer. He was assigned to help keep clean the luge track at Olympic Park. Luge competition times are measured in thousandths of a second so a clean track is essential for the racers. Brother Self swept it of shaved ice or snow, and pulled shades to prevent the sun from melting its glassy ice.
He was standing at the track, out of reach from his broom, on Feb. 13 when a Venezuelan contestant lost control near the bottom while going about 70 miles per hour. She flew out of her sled, smashed against the ice, and slid to rest, unconscious. Her sled barreled on up the slope but then reversed its direction, coming back downhill at about 30 miles per hour right at its motionless rider.
"The sled was on its runners coming backwards; it would have hit her head. Instantly, I thought: 'I have to stop that sled or it is going to kill her.' There wasn't anyone else between me and her. I put my foot down in the track and tried to grab the sled with my hand.
"I thought it was probably going to hurt, but I thought, 'I have to.' The sled pulled me right into the track. It got away from me, but it was slowed enough that the medical people who had just jumped in with her stopped it with their feet.
"The weight of the sled was enough that it ripped the top of my finger off inside my glove. The force was too much for the tissue to hold, I guess."
He doesn't regret his action: "I am the father of three daughters, and that was somebody's daughter lying in the track there and I had to." — John L. Hart
