At the age of 15 he found himself in front of a choice that left no time to think: on the bottom of a channel there was a child of just 15 months.
It was May 3, 2020, in Knottingley, West Yorkshire. Little Reggie Johnson had managed to get away from home without the parents to notice it and ended up in the canal.
When Ryley Ferguson saw him, Reggie was already underwater.
Ryley was only 15.
He took off his shoes and his coat and dived. He crossed the canal by swimming, but when he reached the point where the child was, Reggie was now at the bottom.
Ryley dipped, managed to catch him and brought him back to the surface. Then he swimped up to the shore holding him with him, while two men on the shore intervened to help him pull out the little one from the water.
Reggie survived.
This is the detail that gives real weight to those few minutes: a 15-year-old boy saw a child in danger and, while each second could make a difference, decided to enter the water.
When the BBC asked him to tell what he had done, Ryley resized his gesture with a few words: he said he did what anyone would do.
Yet his courage was publicly recognized.
He was chosen among the finalists of the Amplifon Awards for Brave Britons and received praise from the mayor of Wakefield. An online fundraiser was also organized for him.
Then came another gesture capable of telling something about the boy who had been willing to dive into the canal.
Ryley said he would give the money to the British health service, the NHS.
He was 15.
Before he had reached the bottom of a canal to bring back a 15-month-old child.
Then, when others wanted to reward him for that courage, he chose to turn that recognition into a help for someone else.
Sometimes a story of courage not only tells what a person does in the moment of danger. He also tells what he decides to do when the danger has passed.