He was 15 years old when he saw a child of just 15 months near a canal. A few moments later, that child was in the water and was sinking.
Ryley Ferguson didn't expect anyone else to intervene.
It was 3 May 2020 in Knottingley, a town in West Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom.
Little Reggie Hampton had gone away from home without the parents to notice. Ryley noticed it on the other side of the canal and immediately realized that such a small child should not have been there alone.
Then it all happened in a few moments.
Reggie ended up in the water.
Ryley took off his shoes and coat, plunged into the canal and began swimming towards him.
When he managed to reach him, the child was practically on the bottom.
Ryley grabbed him, brought him back to the surface and naked toward the shore holding him. Two men who were on the shore intervened to help him pull the baby out of the water.
Reggie survived.
Ryley had just made a gesture that had forever changed the life of a family. Yet when the BBC asked him to tell what he had done, the boy did not describe himself as a hero.
He simply said he did what anyone else would do.
But he was 15.
And in front of a child who was disappearing underwater, he did not wait for the arrival of the rescue and did not let anyone else make that decision.
He took away what could slow him down and plunged.
His courage did not go unnoticed.
Ryley was chosen among the finalists of the Amplifon Awards for Brave Britons and publicly received the eulogy of Wakefield's mayor. He was also awarded the Life Saving Medal in Bronze of the Order of St John.
But there is one last detail that makes this story even more significant.
After the rescue, an online fundraiser was organised to reward him.
Ryley decided that he would not hold that money for himself: he would be donated to the British health service, the NHS.
It was May 2020 and the UK was experiencing the first hard months of pandemic. Doctors, nurses and health workers were engaged daily in one of the most difficult emergencies in recent history.
Ryley Ferguson was 15.
He threw himself into a canal to reach a 15-month-old boy who was sinking and brought him back to the shore alive.
Then, when someone tried to reward him for what he did, he preferred that generosity to go to whom, at that time, he was trying to save other lives.