COURAGE IS FOUND IN UNLIKELY PLACES -Walker Crank and Clint Harrington

You never know what kind of story you'll hear on Off The Chips. This is one you won't forget - two teens giving back.

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Transcript

Walker 0:05

Saving a kid's life is pretty big, but I didn't expect it to go all over the country like this.

Clint 0:12

I'm proud of you, man. That's a cool deal.

Haillee 0:19

But you saved his life that day. Welcome to the Off the Chips podcast, where the youth take the mic and leadership takes center stage. Today, we're shining a light on two young men, Walker and Clint. This commitment to community service shows the power of stepping up, from everyday impact to life-saving action. You'll hear how Walker's quick thinking in the school lunchroom turned into a moment of true heroism, and how both of these leaders live out the spirit of service we celebrate at Fusion. Welcome to Off the Chips by Fusion. I'm Hallie Harrell, and I'm here with Clint Harrington and Walker Crank. Found these two outside throwing water balloons at me, and then we found each other doing an interview. They didn't know that throwing water balloons at me would lead up to this, but here we are. Clint, I heard you do a lot of community service and stuff, and how about you just go ahead and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about it.

Clint 1:17

I'm Clint Harrington. I'm from Oklahoma. And yeah, we do a lot of community service where we're at and help our community out and everything. We're pretty small and they ask our FFA to do a bunch and it's It's really nice because they give feedback and give us money back later on to support us when we go to state convention or anything like that. And it's just a great thing to do.

Haillee 1:45

What town are you from in Oklahoma?

Clint 1:47

Nowata.

Haillee 1:47

So you do this through FFA?

Clint 1:50

Yes.

Haillee 1:50

Okay. And then can you go into a little more detail about what you do inside of the community service and if it's just you or if you work with a group of people?

Clint 2:00

Every October they ask us to help support serve a chambers dinner at our golf course it's just a great deal to give back to the community because they give us a big sponsor back you know and they pay for a lunch for us at school one day and so you get to skip nasty cafeteria food and then we do a uh commute the uh award back to all the people around our town that won awards like best bank of the year or just town stuff I guess you know just serve another dinner just pick up help out wherever and then I just recently just got done doing a post like a library walk we dug 18 post holes and Then we came back two days later after concrete set pages of the books on them and everything. And it's just a great way to get back in. It'd just be nice to see more people do it because like there it was just me and my dad that done it. And my dad is the ag teacher, by the way. And it's just It'd be nice to see more people do it, but I guess nowadays they're more worried about technology.

Haillee 3:19

So how many people are in your FFA chapter?

Clint 3:23

Forty.

Haillee 3:24

Forty. And you are the only one that went?

Clint 3:26

Yeah.

Haillee 3:26

We need to get more people like you out there to do stuff. You and your dad. How many years have you been showing cattle?

Clint 3:34

Ten years.

Haillee 3:35

Ten years. And how many years have you been coming to Fusion?

Clint 3:38

Nine.

Haillee 3:38

Nine. It's been here a while. That's pretty awesome. Yeah. So next we're going to move on to Walker. How about you tell us where you're from, how old you are, and tell us a little bit about yourself.

Walker 3:51

I'm Walker Crank. I'm 15. I'm from Salem, Illinois, about an hour from East St. Louis. I go to school at Salem High School. There's a great ag program there in FFA. I like to show cattle. I do football for school. It's an all-around great place to be. Outside of FFA, for right now, we do football during the summer. Start at 7 in the morning, go to 8.30. And after that, I'm working with cattle all day, washing, drying.

Haillee 4:20

And how many years have you been showing cattle?

Walker 4:22

I've been showing since 2019, so six years.

Haillee 4:25

And how many years have you been coming to Fusion?

Walker 4:28

I came to Fusion in 2021, so four years.

Haillee 4:32

How did you two become friends? Because I know y'all have to be friends with throwing water balloons and stuff together. Have you known each other a while? Did you just meet this year? I

Clint 4:42

don't know. How did we meet, Clint? It was the wash rack, I think.

Haillee 4:45

Oh, no, not the wash rack.

Clint 4:48

Was it the wash rack?

Haillee 4:49

Yeah. Who sprayed who?

Clint 4:51

I don't even think we sprayed each other. We was just right next to each other and just washing. I don't even, let's see, how many years ago was it? It had to be three.

Walker 4:59

Chickasha?

Clint 5:00

Chickasha, probably. Yeah. Water balloon. pressure was pretty good, and it was hotter than Hades. I

Walker 5:07

mean, yeah. I think it was, because I remember we had water fights there, and also, and...

Clint 5:13

Oh, yeah, because you chased me around the place forever, too, on Family Fun Night.

Walker 5:17

So

Haillee 5:17

y'all been on this water kick for a while.

Walker 5:19

Yeah.

Haillee 5:20

Yeah.

Walker 5:20

Of course, he's so fast, I couldn't catch him at all.

Haillee 5:24

So do you guys see each other just at Fusion every year? Do you see each other more often?

Walker 5:29

Just Fusion, really.

Haillee 5:31

So you guys reconnect every year back here? Yeah. Got it, got it. So Walker, I saw, I was scrolling Facebook one day and I saw this post about a young man that had this awesome story and it was posted everywhere and everybody was sharing it and I got to read about it and it turns out it was you. So how about you set the scene for us and kind of what happened kind of tell us about it, and then we'll go from there.

Walker 5:58

So the date was May 5th, around 11, 15, sitting in about the middle of the cafeteria. And I have a lunch table, a pretty good lunch table, and this one kid helped quite a bit. So I saw a kid, he was sitting behind me, or to the right of me, and he was slobbering on his shirt, so I thought, he clutched for his chest, I thought he was just clearing the slobber and all that. the saliva. I saw him hit himself over again like three times and I noticed that that was a problem there and he was choking and I jumped up and we met about the middle in between our seats and I had to give him the Heimlich. I don't know how many times I did it.

Haillee 6:39

He was choking and you were the person to respond to him for

Walker 6:42

that?

Haillee 6:43

Yeah. And you guys were at school for this when this happened?

Walker 6:46

Yes. At school.

Haillee 6:47

Gotcha. Was he the same age as you or?

Walker 6:50

I believe so. Yeah. I believe he's a freshman also.

Haillee 6:52

Yeah? Did he have have to go to the hospital or anything after?

Walker 6:57

I believe so because they brought an ambulance after to just make sure he was good and vitals and everything were perfectly

Haillee 7:03

fine. After you got done performing this miracle, as they say, he was breathing again and everything seemed to be okay?

Walker 7:12

Yeah.

Haillee 7:13

Yeah. That's pretty crazy and not very many people are like you to see that and not just think of the worst and go after that. So it's kind of crazy how you jumped into the action really fast and got after that. But do you know the kid's name?

Walker 7:29

His name was Lucas Garner. He's from Centralia, Illinois, so about 12 minutes out of Salem.

Haillee 7:35

Gotcha. Now, where did you learn to do the Heimlich and how to correctly do that? Because there's multiple ways that you can do that and hurt someone and not do it right.

Walker 7:48

They taught us all through grade school, and a lot of kids didn't pay attention. And I pay attention. But in high school, every year the CNA students, they put on like how to stop bleeding wounds and how to use tourniquet and the Heimlich maneuver. So we had to do that and practice it on like pillow dummies.

Haillee 8:10

After you performed this, did the school recognize you, or who recognized you? So

Walker 8:16

my initial thought was like, it's just something minor. I mean, saving a kid's life is pretty big, but I didn't expect it to go all over the country like this. I saw the Facebook post because they awarded me May 23rd, the day before we got out of school, and I was surprised that they did that. I was scared also because whenever I walked in the office, I had the school resource officer in front of me at the desk, and my parents were on both sides of the door. You thought you messed up big time. You

Haillee 8:45

thought you got caught. Yeah,

Walker 8:48

I was tempted to leave instead

Haillee 8:50

of going in. So the school recognized you with an award, and what was that award?

Walker 8:56

It was a plaque. I don't remember what it said, but I remember one thing at the bottom. The most important part was, courage is found in unlikely places. And I thought that was a really neat quote. And the thing is, it's true.

Haillee 9:11

Who else awarded you or recognized you in a way that you've seen that and felt accomplished from that and them awarding

Walker 9:21

you? The thing is, I don't need to be satisfied by going all over Facebook and all that. I'm satisfied with myself. I'm just happy.

Haillee 9:28

There's not very many people in the world that'll do that. But you stepped up that day. Clint, how do you feel about this story?

Clint 9:37

To be honest, I didn't even know anything about it. This is just the first time I knew about it. He hasn't even said anything about it. And we've just kind of been going on like, no, big deal. I'm proud of you, man. That's a cool deal. Yeah, it is. That's big. Our school didn't even teach us that and that's probably something that needs to be brought up now that listening to this and definitely gonna say something.

Haillee 10:03

So in this cafeteria, how many people would you say were in the cafeteria at the time?

Walker 10:09

Couldn't be more than 200. maybe 250.

Haillee 10:12

Out of 200 people, one kid was choking and one kid was paying attention. That was you. When you started doing the Heimlich, did people start realizing it and coming around you guys, or was it just really you and him?

Walker 10:25

I don't know who was around, but people didn't act like it was a big thing, because the lunchroom's pretty big. I think it holds like 700 people or so, and I don't think half the lunchroom knew about it until a couple days later. And I And I don't like being called out much in public. I just like being on my

Haillee 10:46

own. On the down low a little bit. Not causing too much trouble maybe.

Walker 10:50

Yeah. And I figured with how much was happening there, a lot of people would know about it. I was surprised not many did.

Haillee 11:00

Yeah, that's kind of crazy. And then I'm guessing after the school awarded you and seeing that, then most kids saw that in the school and probably seen that maybe they were in the lunchroom that day and they weren't the people that seen it. So that's pretty crazy.

Walker 11:15

Yeah, and I got a text maybe a week ago asking who it was and saying congratulations I did that.

Haillee 11:22

Yeah, so people still around the world and around the country are still seeing this. This story is still popping up where they are seeing it. Yeah. It's kind of crazy. You never know what kind of story you'll hear on Off the Chips. This one, you won't forget. Two teens giving back. Whether you're a lending hand at home or stepping up in a moment of crisis, your actions matter. If today's episode inspired you, go out and serve. That's the fusion way. If you were inspired, take a second to like, follow, and share this episode with someone who believes in leading with heart. Off the Chips can be found on Spotify or going to Off the Chips tab on NAJRE.com. And tell Until next time, be safe.