This 13-year-old dragged

This 13-year-old dragged into eight black floodwater at 2am and paddled toward the screams. But although he was a shy, asthmatic kid who loved video games, the next four hours would turn him into a legend. You see, in August of 2017, Hurricane Harvey flooded Virgil Smith's Dickinson, Texas apartment, forcing him and his mom to a neighbor's second floor. Then his friend called in a panic, his family trapped and unable to swim. So Virgil swam back to his drowned apartment, grabbed the mattress, and turned it into a rescue raft. He loaded his friend, two sisters, and a brother, then went back for their mother and stepdad. For four hours, he ferried neighbor after neighbor to safety while fire ants swarmed and bit his skin. Then a scream rang out 70 yards away, where an elderly woman sat trapped in her wheelchair, water nearly over her head. Virgil smashed the window, calmed her grandson through a seizure, and floated them out with their dog in its crate. By sunrise, the quiet teen had pulled 17 people from the flood, and ten minutes after his final rescue, the mattress burst. Minutes later, his mother watched a baby alligator glide down the path her son had swum all night. Asked why he risked everything, Virgil said, "I don't people drown, and I don't like when people die." The boy who had never flown before traveled to Washington to accept the Young Hero award from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.