Lifeguard gets $2,600 bill after rescuing boy from surf

VANCOUVER, Wash. -- Seventeen-year-old John Clark, a senior at Hudson's Bay, says he didn't think twice about running into the ocean to save a drowning 12-year-old.

But what he hasn't stopped thinking about, is the bill he received as a result of his effort.

What started at Rockaway Beach

The guardian angel is busy this week teaching Boy Scouts to tie knots. It's a far cry from the sand at Rockaway Beach nearly a month ago -- when John Clark heard screams for help from a 12-year-old swept out to sea.

The call for help came just five days after Clark had been certified as a lifeguard.

"He had to do something," said Dan Clark, John's dad.

So John Clark dove in -- through the breakers and heavy swells -- to reach the boy in the ocean. Then he calmed the boy down, and kept him afloat.

"I don't know exactly how big the swells were," Clark said, "but they were big enough to push both of us underwater -- all the way down to where we were touching sand."

Jet skis arrived and pulled both of them to shore.

John had a headache, and the 12-year-old was wrapped in a blanket to warm up. Into the ambulance they both went.

'When we got the bill it was a shock'

Clark thought the trip to Tillamook General Hospital was standard procedure; he didn't give it a second thought until several weeks later ... when the bill arrived.

"I am extremely proud of him," his dad tells KOIN. "When we got the bill it was a shock."

The emergency room bill came to $449. The physician's bill was $227. The 15-mile ride in the ambulance to Tillamook: $1,907. The total bill for saving a young man's life? Nearly $2,600.

"I had a feeling there would be a bill," Clark said. "But I didn't know how much it would be, and I kind of feel bad for the fact that it's so expensive. But I couldn't just let the kid go -- I had to do something."

John Clark is a lifeguard at the Firstenburg Community Center pool and the Marshall Community Center in Vancouver. He's the youngest of nine kids; his family is trying to make arrangements to get the bill paid.