Sunday afternoon Don Sandy grabbed a girl's arm just as the current appeared to be taking her over Turtleback Falls in Pisgah National Forest. Sandy saw her slip after walking across the top, flat section of the falls, he said, and begin a rapid slide down into what could have been a bad end.

"Before I knew it, I had one leg in the water and I had grabbed her arm," he said. "We started sliding, and then I pulled back and hit the dry rock, sticking my knee into it so we wouldn't go any further. It all happened so fast. The momentum had pulled me off my feet. If she had been any bigger, we...