You carry the rest with you. It doesn't get easier.
Nearly a year after floodwaters tore through Central Texas and claimed 28 lives at Camp Mystic — among them 25 children — a young Coast Guard rescue swimmer named Scott Ruskan has stepped forward to name that day for what it was: his first mission, and a permanent mark on his understanding of the work. His account reminds us that disasters do not end when the waters recede; they continue inside the people who waded into them. In bearing witness publicly, Ruskan offers a quiet testimony not only to those who were lost, but to the invisible cost carried by those who arrive to help.
- Floodwaters struck Camp Mystic with devastating speed, killing 25 campers, two counselors, and the camp's executive director in a disaster that cut through a contained community of children and caretakers.
- Scott Ruskan, a Coast Guard aviation survival technician, was deployed into that chaos on his very first mission — no accumulated experience to cushion the weight of what he was asked to witness and do.
- The absence of prior success stories, of any emotional ballast built from earlier rescues, means the imprint of Camp Mystic sits at the very foundation of his professional identity.
- Ruskan has continued in the work — still a rescue swimmer a year later — and his choice to remain speaks to a resilience that is neither simple nor painless.
- By speaking publicly about the day and naming it as formative, he draws the Coast Guard's often-invisible disaster role into the light and insists the human cost of mass casualty response be acknowledged.
Nearly a year has passed since floodwaters swept through Central Texas's Hill Country, killing more than 130 people across the region. At Camp Mystic, the toll was concentrated and devastating: twenty-five campers, two counselors, and the camp's executive director — a community of summer and memory-making transformed overnight into a site of irreversible loss.
For Scott Ruskan, a Coast Guard aviation survival technician second class, the disaster was not something witnessed from a distance. It was his first mission. He arrived trained for the geometry of water rescue, equipped with procedure and protocol, but without the accumulated experience that might soften what he encountered. He did the work, and then he began to carry it.
What distinguishes Ruskan's account is precisely that rawness of beginning. First responders who survive mass casualty events carry the emotional weight forward into every subsequent call. For someone on their very first deployment, there is no prior success to balance against it — only the imprint of what the water took and what could not be undone.
A year later, Ruskan remains a Coast Guard rescue swimmer. He has continued in the profession. That choice, quiet as it is, speaks to something real about resilience — not the absence of damage, but the decision to keep showing up despite it. His willingness to speak publicly about Camp Mystic, to name it as formative, is itself a form of testimony: to the 28 lives lost, and to the cost that does not appear in any official casualty count.
Nearly a year has passed since floodwaters swept through the Hill Country of Central Texas, killing more than 130 people across the region. At Camp Mystic, the waters claimed 28 lives: twenty-five campers, two counselors, and the camp's executive director. For Scott Ruskan, a Coast Guard aviation survival technician second class, that disaster was not a tragedy he witnessed from a distance. It was his first mission.
Ruskan joined the Coast Guard with the understanding that rescue work would be part of his calling. But nothing quite prepares you for the reality of it—the scale, the speed, the weight of what you're asked to do when you're still learning the job. When the floods hit Camp Mystic, Ruskan was deployed into the chaos. He was there in the water, part of the machinery of response, trying to save people in an environment that had already decided who it would take.
The specificity of what happened at Camp Mystic distinguishes it from the broader flooding disaster that ravaged the Hill Country. The camp was a contained community—a place where children and adults had gathered for what was meant to be a summer of growth and memory-making. The flood transformed it into a site of loss so concentrated, so visible, that it demanded attention even within a regional catastrophe. Twenty-five children. Two adults responsible for their care. One director who had built the place.
For Ruskan, the experience has stayed with him in the way that first missions often do. There is no filter of experience to soften it, no prior knowledge that you will survive the emotional weight of it. You simply do the work, and then you carry it. He has spoken publicly about the day, describing it as life-changing—a phrase that carries the weight of understatement when you consider what he witnessed and what he was asked to do.
The Coast Guard's role in disaster response is often invisible to the public until a moment like this brings it into focus. Ruskan and his colleagues are trained for water rescues, for the specific geometry of saving people in conditions where the environment is actively hostile. They arrive with equipment and procedure and the understanding that some people will be saved and some will not. The work requires a kind of compartmentalization that is itself a skill, learned and practiced and never quite perfected.
What makes Ruskan's account significant is not just that he was there, but that he was there at the beginning of his career. The trauma of mass casualty response is real and documented. First responders carry it forward into every subsequent call, every subsequent rescue. For someone on their first mission, that imprint is particularly deep. There is no prior success to balance against it, no accumulated experience that says most calls end differently.
A year later, Ruskan is still a Coast Guard rescue swimmer. He has continued in the work. That fact alone speaks to something about resilience, about the choice to remain in a profession that demands you witness human suffering and respond to it. Whether he will speak more about what he saw at Camp Mystic, whether the passage of time has changed how he understands that day, remains to be seen. For now, his willingness to remember it publicly, to name it as formative, is itself a kind of testimony to what happened there and what it cost.
Citações Notáveis
Ruskan described the experience as a life-changing day— Scott Ruskan, Coast Guard aviation survival technician
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
When you say it was your first mission, did you know that going in, or did you only realize it afterward?
You know it going in. You train for it, you prepare, but preparation and reality are different things. I knew it was my first real deployment, but I don't think you can prepare for what that actually means until you're in the water.
What stays with you most vividly from that day?
The scale of it. You train for individual rescues, for specific scenarios. But this was a whole community in crisis all at once. Twenty-eight people gone. You can't unsee that.
Do you think about the people you couldn't save?
Every day. That's part of the work. You save who you can, and you carry the rest with you. It doesn't get easier.
Has being a first responder changed how you think about your own life?
It makes you understand how fragile things are. How quickly everything can change. You don't take things for granted the same way.
Why did you decide to speak about it publicly?
Because it happened. Because people need to know what happened. And because the people who died deserve to be remembered.