NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WAVY) — Two men are being credited with rescuing four people from a sinking boat Tuesday morning near the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel.
It’s a story in which those two men — former Elizabeth City State University football coach Waverly Tillar and former Gates County High School basketball coach Tron Greene — would never call themselves heroes, but anyone who listens to their version of events from the water near the MMMBT will agree.
They fit the bill.
It all happened Tuesday morning when four boaters were close to tragedy, trapped on a fast-sinking vessel until the two men, Tillar and Greene, showed up. They were there at the right place, and at the right time.
“I wasn’t a hero,” Greene said. “God is just so great, and I’m gonna try to hold back the tears man because it could’ve been me.”
Greene and Tillar were enjoying a morning fishing on the water near the MMMBT when Greene said they saw another small red boat on the water. Tillar who joined 10 On Your Side by Zoom, said he had been keeping an eye on that boat, and at first, all looked OK.
“I looked again, and I didn’t see the red bottom of the boat, and instant panic set in,” Tillar said. “I said, ‘Tron, I don’t see the boat man. I think these people are in the water, man. Come on let’s go.'”
In an instant, it went from calm to chaos.
“I gave it a throttle,” Tillar said. “We were probably over there in like a minute-and-a-half.”
Said Greene: “I can still hear the young lady’s cry for help.”
The two men saw a mother clutching her son, and two others in the water. Using a rope, Tillar and Greene were able to pull all four out of the water — one by one.
“Thank God that the water current wasn’t as bad as it was,” Greene said, “If those conditions was the same, the conversation wouldn’t even have been about heroes, a family would’ve had to bury four people.”
Instead the four were taken to the Huntington Park and greeted by Newport News fire crews. The Newport News Fire Department shared its appreciation of the heroic efforts in a Facebook post.
“The courage and quick action of Mr. Waverly Tillar and Mr. Tron Greene made all the difference,” the post from the Newport News Fire Department read. “Without them, this could have ended in tragedy. They didn’t just witness an emergency, they became the reason a family is whole. We are deeply grateful for their bravery. This is what community looks like.”
NNFD said it had responded to a Code Green around 9 a.m. for a vessel sinking near the MMMBT, with the Coast Guard letting the fire department know that the people had made it out of the water and were heading toward the Huntington Park boat ramp. NNFD said it sent its units to meet the people there.
The private boat arrived at the Huntington Park boat ramp at 10:09 a.m. with six people on board — the four people rescued along with Tillar and Greene, “who had heroically come to their aid,” the fire department said.
Three of the four people were unharmed, while another person needed emergency help, according to the fire department. It stated that due to the fast response, they were quickly stabilized and taken to the hospital.
“I can only thank God, I can only thank coach Tillar for just being so diligent in seeing about those people,” Greene said. “I’m no hero, but I’m just glad I was there to be able to help.”
