Good guys Pearl Jam have donated USD$70,000 to a man who helped rescue their frontman Eddie Vedder after he was involved in a boating accident in Hawaii around 15 years ago.
Vedder was in a six-person sailing canoe in the Pailolo Channel all those years ago, when strong winds overturned the vessel. It was eventually un-capsized, but only three crew members made it back on board before winds took the boat away, so Vedder and two women were left alone in the water.
Ashley Baxter and her father Keith were boating nearby, and eventually heard the stranded people’s cries, before finding them, pulling them aboard and rescuing all of the others still on the canoe.
Since then, Keith has been involved in his own boating accident, which saw a rusty anchor nearly cut off his leg, leaving him with a bone infection.
Following Keith’s accident, Ashley says she bumped into one of the women she rescued when she found Vedder in trouble all of those years ago, and the woman set up a GoFundMe crowdfunding page after hearing of Keith’s injuries. The page raised USD$70,000 for Keith’s medical treatment, and now (as The Inertia reports) the members of Pearl Jam have donated another USD$70,000, bringing the total to USD$140,000
“Yes, it’s all true,” said Keith’s wife, Karen. “Pearl Jam (Eddie, Stone, Jeff, Mike, and Matt) matched what was originally raised ($70K) through Gofundme.com.”
You can watch Ashley Baxter tell the story of Vedder’s rescue herself in the video below.
News of Peal Jam’s $70K donation comes in the same week as reports of Vedder sending USD$10,000 to a struggling mum so that she could buy Christmas presents for her family of six this year. So yeah, they’re basically legends.
To cap it all off, Pearl Jam are set to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame next year.
Watch: Incredible Rescue Leads to Heart-warming Gesture More Than a Decade Later
