2023 Swammy Awards: Heart of a Champion

See all of our 2023 Swammy Awards here.

2023 Heart of a Champion Honoree: Hayden Rose, VMI

The sport of swimming teaches young people so many valuable things. Discipline, punctuality, the value of hard work, and even math. Swimming is not the only sport that teaches young people these things, but it is a sport that does so well.

But something that sets swimming apart from many other sports is that it sits so tangential to a first responder situation. The sport goes hand-in-hand with lifeguards, and while not every swimmer and coach is a lifeguard, the unique atmosphere of swimming means that swimmers and coaches learn first aid and life saving skills at a much higher rate than the average population.

VMI swimmer Hayden Rose took that a step further when he underwent EMT training, and his quick action over the summer helped save the life of a colleague at a cybersecurity exercise over the summer. When a civilian military partner fell and hit her head on concrete, Rose administered early medical treatment and, along with others, continued to administer treatment until medical professionals arrived.

From Colonel Adrian T. Bogart III, the Commonadant of the Virginia Military Institute Corps of Cadets:

The report comes from COL Rusty McGuire ’96 who commands the 91st Cyber Brigade.   On 10 July, at 0855 hours, following the in-brief at Virginia’s Cybersecurity Exercise “Cyber Fortress”, one of the civilian partners suddenly collapsed. VMI Cadet Hayden Rose ’26 observed the woman fall and hit her head on the concrete. Cadet Rose quickly administered aid and noticed she was not breathing. Another soldier and four marines arrived at the scene, and they all performed lifesaving procedures until the emergency personnel arrived. In all over 30 minutes of CPR was performed before she was transported to the hospital where she is in stable condition. Her family is incredibly thankful and credit the group for saving their loved one. Cadet Rose recently completed EMT training at VMI.

Cyber Fortress is a cyber security exercise designed to practice and validate responses to cyber warfare in the state of Virginia. Virginia National Guard Soldiers and Airmen, Virginia governmental departments, and private sector partners all participate in the drills based at Camp Pendleton.

The woman who Rose aided was a civilian employee of a “major telecommunications company” who was participating in the exercise.

After a morning briefing, a group of people participating in the exercises were walking from one building to a next. Rose noticed the woman looking confused, when suddenly he heard a Marine yelling for help.

Rose saw the woman face down on the ground bleeding and reacted.

“I knew my training, and knew it was something I could help with. I assessed her, and found that she wasn’t breathing and didn’t have a pulse. I knew right away we had to start CPR. None of the other service members helping were certified in CPR, so part of my job was instructing them in proper CPR technique. We all took turns performing CPR, and I kept reassessing her to make sure we were doing everything we could to save her life until the ambulance arrived,” Rose recalled.

He says he was unsure about how long it took for the ambulance to arrive, but that others estimated that the group performed CPR for 20 minutes before an ambulance transported her to the hospital.

After completing his exercises at Camp Pendleton, Rose will take the National Registry EMT (NREMT) test that provides him with a two-year certification, and returns to VMI mid-August for cadre week to assume his EMT duties.

Rose was one of 21 VMI students who attended an EMT class that the school held in June, where students went through five weeks (about 150 hours) of training to become an EMT.

Rose, who just completed his freshman year at VMI, is majoring in Computer Science and participates in undergraduate research programs in the field.

At VMI’s mid-season meet, Rose swam a new personal best in the 200 breaststroke.

Honorable Mentions:

• 16-year-old Cooper Zarro‘s 4th annual “Thanksgiving Thousand” took to a new level, raising more than $22,000 to help combat food insecurity in the Sacramento area. That was more than the first three editions combined. The fact that the event is athlete-led makes it all-the-more special.
• The Austin Swim Club raised $140,000 to support families of the Lahaina Swim Club in Hawaii, where the pool was spared but so much else was lost in the wild fires earlier this year. Their efforts represent the thousands of people from across the swimming community that donated money and equipment to help the club and its members rebuild after their community was devastated.
• Japanese swimmer Rikako Ikee was a champion of the traditional variety before being diagnosed with leukemia in 2019. Every day of her battle since then has made her a champion of another variety, and earlier this year she provided another glimmer of hope for people battling that disease around the world when she made her first international podium in half-a-decade by finishing 3rd in the 50 fly at the Mare Nostrum meet in Canet.