As Hurricane Helene-driven floods rose over the Nolichucky River in Tennessee, Boone McCrary, his girlfriend, and his chocolate lab set out on his fishing boat to look for a guy who had been stranded by floodwaters that had destroyed his home. However, the dense debris in the water clogged the boat’s motor, and without power, it collided with a bridge support and capsized.
McCrary and his dog Moss never came out of the water alive.
Two days later, search crews discovered McCrary’s boat and his dog dead, but it took four days to locate McCrary, an emergency department nurse who enjoyed being on his boat in the river. His girlfriend, Santana Ray, clung to a limb for several hours until rescuers arrived.
David Boutin, the man McCrary had set out to rescue, was devastated when he realized McCrary had died while attempting to save him.
“I’ve never had anyone risk their life for me,” Boutin told The Associated Press. “From what I understand, that’s how he’s always been. He is my guardian angel, for sure.”
The 46-year-old described how the flood carried him out his front door and ripped his dog Buddy — “my best friend, all I have” — from his grasp. Boutin was rescued by another squad after spending six hours clinging to tree branches in the surging river. Buddy is still gone, and Boutin believes he could not have lived.
McCrary was one of at least 230 individuals murdered by Hurricane Helene’s rushing floods and fallen trees in six states – Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia — and one of several first responders who died while attempting to save others. The cyclone caused considerable damage in nearby Unicoi County, where floods killed 11 workers at a plastics factory and prompted a rescue mission at an Erwin, Tennessee, hospital.
McCrary, an avid hunter and fisherman, spent his time cruising the waters of Greeneville, Tennessee. When the hurricane hit, the 32-year-old asked friends on Facebook whether they needed assistance, according to his sister, Laura Harville. That is how he learned about Boutin.
McCrary, his fiancée, and Moss the dog entered a flooded area at 7 p.m. on September 27 and approached Boutin’s position, but the debris-filled floodwaters clogged the boat’s jet motor. Despite pushing and pulling the throttle, McCrary was unable to clear the debris and crashed into the bridge around two hours into the rescue operation.
“I got the first phone call at 8:56 p.m. and I was a nervous wreck,” Harville remembered. She proceeded to the bridge and began walking the banks.
Harville coordinated hundreds of volunteers who scoured the muddy banks with drones, thermal cameras, binoculars, and hunting dogs, fighting off copperhead snakes, trekking through knee-high muck, and navigating tangled branches. Harville gathered items with McCrary’s fragrance — a pillowcase, sock, and insoles from his nursing shoes — and placed them in mason jars for the dogs to sniff.
On Sunday, a drone operator noticed the boat. They discovered Moss dead nearby, but there was no sign of McCrary.
Searchers were unsuccessful on Monday, “but on Tuesday they noticed vultures flying,” Harville added. That is how they discovered McCrary’s body, around 21 river miles (33 kilometers) from the bridge where the boat capsized, she stated.
The floodwaters pushed McCrary under two more bridges, beneath the roadway, and over the Nolichucky Dam, she claimed. The Tennessee Valley Authority reported that around 1.3 million gallons (4.9 million liters) of water per second flowed over the dam on the night McCrary was swept away, more than doubling the flow rate of the dam’s previous permitted release nearly a half-century before.
Boutin, 46, is unsure where he will go next. He’ll spend a few days with his son before hoping to receive a hotel coupon.
He didn’t find out McCrary’s fate until the day he was freed.
“When the news hit, I didn’t know how to take it,” Boutin told the Associated Press. “I wish I could thank him for giving his life for me.”
Dozens of McCrary’s coworkers at Greenville Community Hospital paid tribute to him, recalling his generosity, compassion, and willingness to serve others. This individual “was adamant about living life to the fullest and making sure along the way that you didn’t forget your fellow man or woman and that you helped each other,” according to Harville.
McCrary’s penultimate TikTok video, posted before the hurricane, shows him dashing across the surface of rushing muddy water to the song “Wanted Dead or Alive.” He left a message at the bottom, which read:
“Some people asked if I had a ‘death wish.'” The reality is, I have a ‘life wish.’ I need to feel the life that runs through my veins. One thing about myself, I may be ‘crazy,’ Perhaps a touch reckless at times, but when the time comes to bury me, you can say I lived it to the fullest.”
