Dad of 13 Dies After Saving Daughter in Rapids

A father of 13 who was thrown from a raft that overturned on the Arkansas River managed to save his daughter, who was pinned beneath the raft, before dying of his own injuries. Dustin Harker, a neurologist from Kansas, had ventured to the Sunshine Falls area of Colorado's Royal Gorge for a whitewater rafting trip on June 9, with four of his children and several church members in tow, per CBS News. It was a trip they'd taken before, "but this year, with the high rainfall, the rapids were more turbulent than in the past," Harker's sister-in-law, Sharon Neu Young, said in a June 12 statement, per the Canon City Daily Record.

Harker was in a raft with three of his children and some friends when it capsized in a series of rapids, CBS reports. His 13-year-old daughter, Camille, "was trapped under the raft and Dustin was able to flip it over and get it off of her," Young tells the outlet. "He was also able to get them both back on to the raft." The pair made it to shore, along with everyone else that had been in the raft. Harker "was still speaking but shortly after became unresponsive," Young said in the statement, adding CPR failed to revive him. In her statement, Young also noted the trauma inflicted on "those who witnessed the tragedy unfold," including Harker's three additional children present, ages 15, 17, and 18.

Though it was initially assumed Harker had drowned, an autopsy revealed the 47-year-old died from two cerebral hematomas, or masses of blood in the cerebrum, the largest part of the brain. "They suspect his head crashed against some rocks in the river when he was thrown from the boat," Young tells CBS. "The brain trauma is what took his life." His last act reflected his attitude as a neurologist. "My philosophy is to always put the patient first," he wrote on the website of the Hutchinson Clinic, where he'd worked since early 2022, per the Hutchinson News. Born in Canada, he leaves behind his wife, Emilie, and 13 children ages 4 to 23. A GoFundMe page has raised $34,000 for the family as of Tuesday morning. (More rafting stories.)