A high school student died trying to save a girl from drowning at Hermit Falls in the San Gabriel Mountains, according to friends and family.
Jesse Yuth, 18, had jumped 50 feet from a cliff into the water with the girl, who could not swim, during a spring break hike Wednesday, his friends said. However, she got into trouble in the ice-cold water and he tried to help.
Some other friends jumped in to try and rescue the pair, but Yuth ended up getting being trapped for around five minutes.
"He tried to save a girl. He got hurt in the process," his cousin, David Chum, said. "We jumped in, me and another man. I saved the girl but he couldn't get Jesse."
Yuth had posted a video of himself making a daring leap into a mountain pool on an earlier trip. He had headed to the Angeles Forest with a group of relatives and friends, hiking from Chantry Flats to Hermit Falls.
The teenager was a member of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) and had been planning to join the army in the summer, his heartbroken father, Matthew Soth, said.
"I asked him why (do) you like the army, it's very dangerous. He say, 'Dad, if I die, I die a hero,'" Soth said. "Now he's died because he tried to save someone's life (from) drowning."
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The first-generation American's parents had emigrated from Cambodia before he was born and his mother, Sambo Yuth, said he had all the qualities she could want from a son.
"He always have a good heart and care for others," Sambo said.
Yuth's ROTC mentor Sgt. Robert Donovan said he was the best future soldier he'd ever worked with. The Long Beach recruiting station is planning to honor him with a memorial.
