Bravery While Terrified: The Courage at Camp Mystic

It started off as a normal night: Glenn Juenke, a night security guard at Camp Mystic, drove his electric golf cart around the camp after lights out. But around 1:30am, the weather became alarming, and rain flooded the camp. 

At 2:30am, they decided to begin evacuations. Juenke hesitated before going to the cabin. “I’m not taking the truck down, I can’t do it,” he said to his boss, seeing the terrifying amount of water. But shortly thereafter, he went on foot to evacuate the girls at the camp.

When he got to the Wiggle Inn, there was a rushing current flooding the cabin. Thinking quickly, he inflated air mattresses some of the girls had in their trunks, and told the girls to get on them. The water rose past his chest and eventually became too deep to stand in.

“It’s a new activity,” he said, “pool party at the Wiggle Inn after midnight.” He was terrified, but he acted calm for the campers. 

Psychologists have a name for this particular shape of courage, “tend-and-befriend.” Under severe threat, fight-or-flight isn't the only setting the body has. Some people, especially when children are in danger, do the opposite. They gather in the vulnerable and protect them. The response doesn't cancel the fear, it runs alongside it. This is exactly what Juenke did: “If I show that I am scared to death, that’s not going to do any good for the 9-year-old girls,” he said in interviews after the disaster.

Juenke was not the only one with this instinct. The camp director, Dick Eastland, died trying to save as many as possible. And 19-year-old counselors Silvana Garza Valdez and María Paula Zárate, after writing the names of their campers on their skin so they could be identified in case they didn’t make it, filled the waiting hours with games and songs so the youngest wouldn't read the fear on the adults' faces. 

By the next morning, every girl in the Wiggle Inn had survived, thanks to Juenke’s efforts over those few hours.