Eagle Scout Joseph Pope to receive Scouting’s highest honor for lifesaving

The Indian Waters Council of the Boy Scouts of America will present Scouting’s highest award for lifesaving to one of its own – Eagle Scout Joseph Pope of Columbia.

On Jan. 21, Joseph will receive the Honor Medal With Crossed Palms, which is awarded only in exceptional cases in which a youth member or adult leader has demonstrated unusual heroism and extraordinary skill in saving a life at extreme risk to self. Since the award was created 100 years ago, only 277 of these medals have been awarded nationally (out of a population of 160,000,000 youths and adult leaders over the years).

The medal recognizes what Joseph and his friend Charles Segars did in the wee hours of Sept. 2, 2023.

Joseph and Charles are juniors at Clemson University, where Joseph majors in mechanical engineering and Charles in forestry. They had been visiting friends and were almost back to their apartment in Charles’ truck at about 1 a.m., when they saw a local bus stopped on the side of the road with its hazard lights blinking.

At first they didn’t notice the car that had run off the road at the T-shaped intersection of Cherry Road and Old Stone Church Road. Its lights were out. When they spotted it, they thought at first that it had been abandoned there. Then, they saw smoke coming from it.

As the bus driver called for emergency services, Joseph went immediately to the wrecked car. He couldn’t see inside for the smoke, but when he knocked on the driver’s window, he heard moaning.

“People are in the car!” he called to Charles, asking him to bring something that could break the safety glass. “I had a hammer in the truck,” said Charles. “I gave it to Joseph, and he broke the window.”

Inside, they found an incapacitated driver, and together, they dragged him out, with Joseph cutting his arm in the process (which later required five stitches). They still couldn’t see for the smoke and airbags, so they asked the driver whether anyone else was in the vehicle.

“He mumbled that there was another person in the car,” remembers Joseph. “I opened the backseat,” and he could see that in the front passenger seat, “there was a girl laying across the console.”

And at this point, flames were coming from the front of the car.

The two young men raced around to the passenger window and broke that as well. With the help of a passenger from the bus, they “dragged her out onto the grass.” By this time, the vehicle was becoming overwhelmed with flames.

They had placed her on the ground and positioned themselves so that Charles could check her pulse while Joseph was ready to start CPR if her pulse stopped.

“She was unconscious, but still breathing,” Charles said of Sophia Vega, a sophomore biochemistry major at Clemson.

“Charles found a pulse,” says Joseph, and initially, so did the emergency workers who were just arriving. “Then they lost it.”

EMS workers managed to revive her, then flew her to Greenville Memorial Hospital. The Tiger at Clemson reported that “the car’s passenger side took the brunt of the hit, causing Vega to break her leg, ankle, shoulder and spine.” Also, the seat belt caused serious internal injury.

Nevertheless, she was there, with a cast on her leg, to thank her rescuers when Joseph and Charles received the police department’s Life-Saving Award during a Clemson City Council meeting on Nov. 6.

“The swift actions of Mr. Pope and Mr. Segars in this situation no doubt contributed to saving the lives of two individuals who were unable to extract themselves from a vehicle that had caught fire, all while exposing themselves to significant risk of personal injury,” Clemson University Chief of Police Gregory G. Mullen wrote in a letter to Joseph’s scoutmaster. He added that their actions “warrant special recognition of their outstanding character, unusual heroism, and courage in service to their fellow citizens.”

On Jan. 21, Joseph will be honored by his troop (and again at the Indian Waters Council Banquet in Sumter on Feb. 25). Although he is 21 and became an Eagle Scout long ago, he remains eligible for the medal. Since then he has participated in the Venture Scouts program, and has been a counselor at the Council’s Camp Barstow for several summers. And although he is not a Scout, fellow hero Charles will be recognized as well.

“Joseph has been a Scout through and through his whole life,” says Doug Stone, the Indian Waters Council Scout Executive. Stone said he is thrilled to see the way Joseph has demonstrated what Boy Scout training can enable someone to do. “He just knew what to do, and had the courage to do it.”

Flynn Bowie, scoutmaster of Troop 10, the Eastminster Presbyterian Church troop to which Joseph belongs, agrees.

“It’s extremely gratifying to see a young man demonstrate Scouting’s principles of helpfulness, kindness, and bravery and use the skills he has learned to preserve the lives of two people,” said Bowie. “I am extremely proud of Joseph, and Charles as well.”

For their own part, the young men play down their own heroism. Asked about the reports that professional first responders were amazed to see they had pulled an unconscious young woman from a car being consumed with flames, Charles simply said, “Yessir, that’s what they made it sound like.”

“I don’t think I did anything special,” said Joseph. “I‘m just glad God put Charles and me in a position to be able to help,” and that those involved “were able to recover.”