re: people who jump in to save people from drowning

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quote: joe delaney RIP

First person I thought of when I read the subject. You are brave as frick if you don't know how to swim but still jump into water to save someone.

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A friend's parents, in their 60s, were vacationing at the beach in Port Aransas with another couple, probably early/mid 50s. My friend's dad had gone back to the hotel room. My friend's mom was waist deep and got pulled out in a rip current. The couple in their 50s saw what was happening pretty quick. It was late in the day and they couldn't attract any attention. The guy sends his wife for help and he goes into the water after the victim with no flotation. For all practical purposes, he can't swim. He's like a dog paddle to the side of the pool swimmer, not a rip current swimmer. But he knows how rip currents work and he stays calm. The current pretty much takes him to where it washes out and where the victim is. She's unresponsive. He grabs her and starts dog paddling back to the beach. He was carrying her out of the surf when help arrived. They start CPR and take her to the hospital. Husband gets back from hotel to see the crowd and doesn't realize his wife's dead. He sees the other couple crying on the beach and finds out it's his wife who drowned.

They get directions and drive to the hospital. They had revived the wife, but she had inhaled a shitload of salty, sandy water and was all fricked up, but not brain dead. She spends a few days in ICU and then makes a near miraculous recovery.

Highly improbable happy ending to what would usually end up as a double drowning. When they were telling me the story I asked the rescuer WTF he was thinking. He said, "She needed help and no one else was there." I said, "Yeah, but you can't swim." He said, "I knew I would float if I held my breath and I had read about rip currents, so I knew not to try to swim against it."

This wasn't a dumb guy. He was retired from IBM and knew the risk he was taking. Big balls.