"I'll Hold You Up From Below" — The Father Who Jumped Into a Septic Tank to Save His Son: The Story of Thomas Vander Woude

A Father of Seven

Thomas Vander Woude was, by most accounts, an ordinary man living an extraordinary kind of quiet life. A retired Marine officer, he and his wife Mary Ellen settled on a small property near Woodstock, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley, where they raised seven sons. He coached Little League, volunteered at his parish, fixed neighbors' fences, and never turned down anyone who needed a hand. He was the kind of man a small town depends on without ever quite saying so.

His youngest son, Joseph — known to everyone as Josie — was born with Down syndrome. Thomas was already in his late fifties when Josie arrived, but he called his seventh son "the greatest gift God ever gave us." For twenty years, the two were inseparable. Every morning they walked together. Every Sunday they sat side by side at Mass. Thomas built his retirement around being Josie's companion, advocate, and protector.

September 8, 2008

It was a clear Monday morning in early fall. Thomas was working in the yard. Josie, now twenty years old, was nearby. Behind the house sat an old septic tank with a concrete cover that had deteriorated over the years.

In an instant, the cover gave way. Josie fell eight feet into the underground tank filled with sewage and toxic gases — hydrogen sulfide and methane — that can render a person unconscious within seconds. Josie, unable to fully comprehend the danger or coordinate an escape, was trapped.

Thomas heard his son's cries.

No Hesitation

A former Marine knows what a confined space filled with toxic gas can do. Thomas Vander Woude understood the risk. He understood it completely.

He jumped in anyway.

In the darkness, in water and sewage up to his chest, he found his son. And then he did the only thing a father's body knows how to do: he lifted. Thomas hoisted Josie onto his shoulders and pushed him upward with both arms fully extended, keeping his son's head and torso above the surface of the sewage. To do this, Thomas himself had to remain submerged, his own face below the toxic water, breathing in the very gases he knew could kill him.

He held that position. He did not let go.

Other family members, hearing the commotion, rushed to the scene. They found Josie being pushed upward from below by his father's outstretched arms. They pulled Josie out. He was alive.

When they pulled Thomas out, he was unconscious. Emergency responders arrived and attempted resuscitation, but it was too late. Thomas Vander Woude, age sixty-six, died in the effort of saving his son.

"Dad Was Holding Him Up From Below"

Family members who participated in the rescue later described the scene. Thomas had been standing in the tank with Josie raised above his head on fully extended arms, his own face completely submerged. He had chosen — consciously, deliberately — to breathe poison so that his son could breathe air.

Those final minutes of Thomas's life were spent in total darkness, in sewage, with burning lungs, holding his arms above his head in the most physically demanding posture possible. He did not put his son down. He did not lower his arms to take a breath for himself.

Legacy

Thomas Vander Woude was posthumously awarded the Carnegie Hero Medal, the United States' most prestigious civilian award for heroism, given to individuals who risk or sacrifice their lives to save others.

Josie made a full recovery.

In the years that followed, the Vander Woude family established the Thomas Vander Woude Foundation, dedicated to supporting adults with Down syndrome and intellectual disabilities. The foundation provides residential programs, vocational training, and community integration services. In 2020, the family opened Ranney Ranch, a residential community in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley where adults with disabilities can live with dignity and purpose.

Thomas's eldest son said in an interview:

"Dad didn't become a hero that day. He was a hero every day. Waking up at five in the morning to make Josie's breakfast, holding Josie's hand on their walks, seeing the world through Josie's eyes for twenty years — every one of those days was preparation for that moment."

When Love Becomes Reflex

This is not simply a story about a dramatic rescue. It is a story about what twenty years of daily, unglamorous, repetitive love looks like when it is tested in a single moment.

Thomas did not hesitate because he had spent two decades practicing. Every time he lifted Josie as a child, every time he steadied him on uneven ground, every time he held his hand a little tighter crossing the street — all of it was rehearsal for the final act.

The posture he held at the bottom of that septic tank — arms raised, body submerged, bearing the weight of his son — was simply the last expression of what he had been doing his entire life as Josie's father: holding his child up from below, letting his son stand on his shoulders, ensuring that Josie could reach the air and the light even if it meant he himself could not.

Josie Today

Josie Vander Woude is alive today. His family says he understands, in his own way, what his father did. He may not be able to articulate it in complex sentences. But love, the family says, does not require complex sentences.

Josie knows.

And through the foundation that bears Thomas's name, the sacrifice of one father on a September morning continues to give life — not just to Josie, but to hundreds of adults with disabilities who now have a community, a home, and a future they might not otherwise have had.

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Thomas Vander Woude (1942–2008) traded his life for his son's tomorrow. That tomorrow now belongs to hundreds.