Sacramento teen who died while trying to save brother to receive heroism medal
A Sacramento teen who died two years ago will be recognized with one of the highest honors for civilian heroism for trying to rescue his younger brother as they were caught in a cold and fast-moving river.
Amari Quarles, 15, drowned June 4, 2023, while trying to save his 13-year-old brother, Elijah, who was struggling after he fell into the Sacramento River near Sand Cove Park.
Elijah was rescued by his stepmother and a passerby in a boat, but Amari was pulled under the current and did not resurface. Authorities recovered his body not far from where he was last seen.
Amari is among 17 people receiving the Carnegie Medal, which is given throughout the United States and Canada to those who performed “acts of extraordinary heroism” while risking serious injury or death to save others, according to a news release from the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission.
“This is the greatest honor that could be given to anyone in our family,” James Sashe, Amari’s father, said Tuesday. “That’s our biggest goal is to never let his name die.”
The Natomas High School student is being given the medal posthumously and is one of two people among the Hero Fund awardees who died during their heroic act. Joseph Hugh West, 58, died July 1, 2023, while saving a girl from drowning at Kure Beach, North Carolina, July 1, 2023. The girl was rescued, but West was pulled farther from shore and out of sight. His body was found shortly after he had drowned.
This is the Hero Fund’s first award announcement for this year and each of the honorees, or their survivors, receive a financial grant along with the medal. In the 120 years since the fund was established by industrialist-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, more than $45 million has been given in one-time grants, scholarship aid, death benefits and continuing assistance, according to the organization.
Sashe said Amari’s siblings, including Elijah, have struggled with grief over their brother’s death. He said he recognizes Elijah wants to live his life to honor his older brother.
“’But you have to live your own life,’ I tell him,” Sashe said. “As time goes on, we’ve learned that it heals. But it’s tough for (the grief) to go away.”
Sacramento River incident
Amari was with a group of six people, including his father, along the Sacramento River downstream near Bryte Bend. Sashe said they had no plans to get in the water that day. He said Elijah got into the water to fetch a football that had gone into the river.
“It seemed like a shallow area (of the river),” the father told The Bee a few days after the drowning. “It just started to take him out.”
Elijah fell into the water and was taken farther out by a strong current. His older brother spotted him struggling in the water about 90 feet from the shore.
Sashe said Amari wasted no time and rushed into the river to get his brother. The father and his wife — once they realized both boys were in the river — also jumped into the water.
Amari entered the cold water and swam to Elijah as the current pulled his younger brother further away. When he reached Elijah, both were about 180 feet from the shore, the news release said, and Amari positioned himself behind Elijah and pushed him to keep him out of a nearby eddy current.
Sashe’s wife, the boys’ stepmother, felt a steep dropoff in the water, feeling almost “like a cliff” underneath them, the father said.
“That’s the part that Amari got stuck in,” Sashe has said. “He would’ve given his life for any of his family members. And he lost his life trying to save his brother.”
Sashe’s wife reached Elijah and held onto him. She then spotted Amari struggling in the water about 20 feet away, so she released Elijah and told him to float while she tried to help his older brother. The Hero Fund news release said she swam to Amari, before they were both were pulled into an eddy. Amari was submerged in the water and did not resurface.
A passerby in a boat went to help them, which inadvertently created a wave that briefly submerged the stepmother. She then resurfaced at a point outside of the eddy, the news release said, and the passerby first helped Elijah onto the boat and then his stepmother. Both survived the ordeal without injury.
Northern California warnings
In the several weeks before Amari’s drowning, local officials had warned the public that it was still too cold to swim in Northern California rivers. The temperatures at the time had reached the 90s in Sacramento, but the record Sierra Nevada snowpack was melting and creating dangerously fast and cold currents for anyone else looking to cool off.
Cold water temperatures can create challenging conditions. Taking a plunge into cold water can be a shock to the body, limiting the swimmer’s ability to stay above the water’s surface.
After rescue swimmers searched the river for more than an hour, the search switched to a recovery operation, a Sacramento Fire Department spokesperson said at the time. The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office used sonar technology to find the teen’s body.
