How a Montana teenager, rescued in 1973, found the men who saved him


Loren Oelkers (left) and Rick Goff meet for the first time, 50 years after Goff helped to save Oelkers from drowning at Canyon Ferry Lake

Loren Oelkers never got to thank the two men who saved his life that day.

In the summer of 1973, he was a 17-year-old kid who’d come within seconds of drowning in the murky waters of Montana’s Canyon Ferry Lake, the reservoir on the Missouri River. The men who saved him were complete strangers, two unfamiliar guys who just happened to be there that 4th of July morning. Two men whom he’d never met before and didn’t see again.

Loren learned their names only through the newspaper report that appeared in the Helena Independent Record later that week, but neither Rick Goff nor Jim Funk lived in his hometown. Nor had they reached out to contact him in the days that followed. As life moved on decades later, the knowledge of the debt he owed these two strangers was never far from Loren’s thoughts, but the responsibilities of a career and raising a growing family were his first priorities.



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