Don't have time to read this story? Listen to my audio version here --> saving a little boy from drowning - the lesson it taught me.mp3
I’ve never really shared this story with anyone before, but I’m opening up to you because you are a part of my family. You are here now and you believe in the mission of what I'm here to do and that means more to me than you could ever know.
So first and foremost, thank you for being here right now in this present moment. You are such a blessing and I’m grateful that you are in my life.
I’m sharing this story with you because this moment really changed my life and I hope it might inspire change in yours as well.
As you know by now from the first email I sent you, I was a lifeguard in Ocean City, Maryland for a few summers. They were easily the best summers of my life and I wouldn’t trade them for the world. I made so many friends, memories, and had more bleached eyebrows then I can count.
But with all of those great things also means that I’ve had many trying times as an ocean lifeguard, too. It really is no joke to be a lifeguard in OCMD. It’s a serious job, with serious responsibilities. Because in the blink of an eye, someone’s best day of their life could be turned into their worst. I’ve seen it happen more times than I’d like to admit.
With that, however, you do get to see blessings and pure miracles happen each day.
One such miracle was the sight of a father carrying his eight year old quadriplegic daughter in the surf to play.
At first, my lifeguard self was freaking out for a few minutes because I saw danger. But my more compassionate, human self saw pure love, joy, and a miracle in the making.
While the surf was rather calm that day, I was totally cool with her being in the water in her dad’s arms. It is one of those memories that I am so grateful I got to witness.
But I also have memories of near death experiences, too.
One such moment was just another day with above average surf conditions. The waves were nice to play in but to the untrained eye, the rip currents were pulling just a touch too hard which could pull even the strongest of swimmers out to sea.
So all day I watched swimmers and prevented danger from happening. I would go in if I needed to and pull them back to safety. Something I would do hundreds of times over the course of my years as a lifeguard.
Later on in the afternoon of this particular day I watched as two people on inner tubes were drifting a little further out than I would’ve liked. They weren’t in any danger ~yet~ and I was cool with them just hanging out there talking to each other. They were about 100 yards off shore and seemed to be pretty chill not drifting any further.
I kept a close eye on them over the span of the next 10-15 minutes when I noticed they started drifting just a touch further out to sea. So I stood up, blew my whistle and directed them to come closer.
As soon as I did that, I noticed one of them had ditched his raft, begin trying to swim in and began actively drowning. As soon as I noticed this, without hesitation, my lifeguard instincts kicked in and I dove through the surf, as fast as I could out to what I thought were originally two teenagers.
As I got about 20 yards away I noticed they were just two boys no older than the age of 10. The kid who had ditched his raft was fighting for his life with just two hands flailing above the water’s surface.
Swimming closer and closer, the boy who had stayed on his raft ditched it to swim closer to his friend. He kept yelling, “Steven! Steven!”
Upon arrival, I gave my buoy to the boy who was swimming over to Steven. And at this point, Steven was fully submerged and I had to go underwater to bring him up.
When I got him up I realized he was completely unconscious. Thankfully he was breathing, but still not conscious. It was clear he had taken on too much water.
With the other boy on my buoy, I started treading water with Steven’s head on my chest talking to him saying, “Steven! Come on buddy you gotta wake up.” I started slapping his face, saying louder and louder, “Steven! Come on Steven! I need you to wake up for me now.”
With what felt like an eternity was probably about 20 seconds, I started to see Steven’s eyes open and he started to cough up a lot of water. By this point, I had backup and my neighboring lifeguard came out to help. He took the friend on his buoy, while I started kicking both Steven and I into shore. Because of the strong current that day, it easily took us 5-10 minutes to get back in. And when we did, we ended up about 200 yards down shore from where we entered.
While swimming both of us in, I made sure that Steven was breathing and not taking on any more water. As he was clearly still not very responsive, he was, however, conscious and breathing which is how I wanted to keep it.
By the time we got to shore, he was still coughing up water and was regaining some responsiveness. He was fine enough to walk in on his own, but was very, severely exhausted and we went through the proper protocols of calling EMS to make sure he wouldn’t have any secondary drowning.
As the scene started to subside, I returned back to my stand pretty exhausted myself. I still needed to be alert and ready to go at a second’s notice in case it happened again, however.
But as I stood there to dry off, I just thought to myself, “what if I had been ten seconds slower? Five seconds slower? Would Steven still be alive?”
I’m not the bragging type, nor would I want it to be perceived this way, but it is a serious contemplation I had. Being a former collegiate swimmer, I was one of the fastest swimmers on beach patrol - for which, I’m completely grateful. However, if someone else had swam out to him, would Steven had been as lucky?
As OCMD lifeguards, we are trained to be elite and I have 100% trust that each one of my guards next to me is going to come out to back me up when I go in - just as I would do for them. So I like remind myself that Steven would have been ok if it were someone else.
All of these thoughts were racing through my mind in the matter of seconds. Sure, I had serious, and even worse experiences before that moment, but something about this shook me.
I don’t know if it was the fact of holding Steven’s life in my arms in the middle of the ocean. The fact that he reminded me of myself at that age (I couldn’t swim until I was 17, so it hit home). Or just the severity of the situation. But all of it together left an imprint in my mind for years to come.
Steven and his family returned to me later that day after being checked out by the doctors. He was ultimately fine and they were so eternally grateful for what I had done. As it turned out the two boys were brothers! While I really do try to see the humility in life’s situations, I just smiled at them and educated them so it wouldn’t happen again.
As the months passed, every time I spent time with a loved one for the holidays I couldn’t help but think about Steven.
He was able to spend time with his family again because I simply chose to act without hesitation. He is alive because of an action I chose to make.
And the moral of this story is you can choose to act in your own life as well. You can simply decide to make one decision. Then another. And another. And soon those little decisions could save a life. And that life could be yours.
It could be one of the lives of your family members. It could be the lives of all those around you. Because our actions don’t just affect ourselves. Every time we choose to do anything, someone else’s life is changed.
So I encourage you to start small. Start with one simple decision. We are all different and unique which is what makes us beautiful. But my one small decision is going to be entirely different from yours. If you are someone who hasn’t exercised in years, take an easy 10 minute walk or whatever is right for you in this moment. Then the next day do a little bit more.
If you are someone who has no idea where to start with their nutrition, put your trust in someone who is dedicated to giving you the right advice and start with one bite at a time. It doesn’t have to be me, but it does have to be someone you trust and is willing to work with you and empower you until you reach your goals.
So take action as fast as you can. Because you never really know if waiting just 10 seconds could be the difference between life or death.
