The Coaster

By TOM SHORTELL

Scott Nokes went to boot camp this summer because he likes early morning runs and pushups. There were no pushups, but Nokes did run a quarter of a mile in the dark of night while carrying an ill cadet to medical attention.

Neptune Township High School is nominating Nokes, a senior enrolled in the Navy Jr. ROTC program, for a heroship award for his actions.

Nokes was sitting around the campfire with other cadets toward the end of a joint Army and Navy Jr. ROTC camp in Pine Hill when one of the other cadets collapsed. The cadet had mentioned he had been diagnosed as a diabetic before attending the camp, so the other cadets fed him Skittles and tried to wake him up with sternum rubs, which failed to keep him conscious for long. Nokes, who has EMT training, figured the cadet was going into a diabetic coma and saw he needed immediate medical attention. There were no phones available, so Nokes hauled the cadet onto his back and ran to the nearest road with two other cadets.

It was around 9 p.m. and none of the trails were lit, so Nokes and the two cadets ran by the light of the moon. “It was pitch dark,” Nokes said. “You’re adrenaline gets going. You get tunnel vision,” he said.

The boys cut through the woods and a neighboring girls camp to reach a frequently patrolled road without stopping. A supervisor at the girls camp yelled at them, but Nokes shouted back it was a medical emergency without looking back.

“That was extremely good headwork on his part,” said Commander Tommy Atkins, the head of the Jr. ROTC program at Neptune Township High School.

After running a quarter of a mile in the dark, Nokes arrived at a road that camp administrators watch to make sure campers don’t sneak off in the night. Nokes passed along the sick cadet to one of the other cadets and hailed one of the patrolling cars. They passed the sick cadet to the patrol and then ran to wake up the nurse a mile away. “It was probably the fastest mile I’ve ever ran,” Nokes said.

When they arrived at the nurse’s cabin, all the lights were off. “We were afraid she left,” he said. She did answer the door after the cadets pounded on it, and she and an ambulance called to the scene attended the sick cadet outside the cabin.

For his actions, the high school is nominating Nokes for the Dana Christmas Scholarship for Heroism. The scholarship, which awards up to $10,000 to as many as five students a year, is named after the resident assistant who risked her life to wake up students at the Seton Hall dormitory fire in 2000.

“It was tremendous decision making under stressful conditions in realizing he was the most qualified person there to handle it,” Atkins said. “Scott is a quiet individual. Him stepping forward like this was really a very pleasant surprise.”

Scott, however, would be fine if he didn’t get a thing for his actions.

“I really don’t want it,” he said of the scholarship.

Along with ROTC, Nokes is a volunteer firefighter at the Shark River Hills Fire Station and a member of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Team, which responded to water rescues in Avon, Bradley Beach, Neptune and Neptune City. He was involved in the response to the plane crash in the Shark River this July. On top of all that, he’s already enlisted to join the Marines once he graduates.

“I don’t do any of this stuff for ribbons,” he said.

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