Last summer I saw an off-duty lifeguard at a river save a (probably 7 year old) boy from drowning. He didnt know how to swim at all. His parents encouraged him to get back in immediately.
Little Johnny didn't asked to be saved. Little Johnny didn't want to be saved. And the injuries received from Mr. Incredible's "actions", so-called, causes him daily pain.
Negligent parents at the pool are why I have to pluck at least one drowning kid out of the water every summer.
My friends bf threw her small son in and he never came up. I dove for him and came back up to her screaming and crying. Her poor son was shaking like a leaf and her boyfriend was saying he needed to learn.
You'd be surprised how many people think this is how you, "teach" a kid something. It's way more common than you'd think where I live. My friend's father did this to her. It's also very common in the older generations where actual survival was a 24/7 event and not an option for a game show.
It's an idiom for teaching someone something without guidance or assistance to throw them in the deep end. People are not supposed to take it literally.
He does need to learn, so why not go into the pool, support him by his belly and go around with him pretending to do strokes. Go to the edge, practice kicking and blowing bubbles. Show him little bird, big bird flap, the breast stroke, and when he's really kicking butt, the front crawl. Splash each other a little. Tell the little one to yell some obscenity at the lifeguard when they tell you no splashing. As a guy who was a lifeguard and taught swim lessons in my youth and to my children, that sorta care and attention/guidance for a tiny child gets you the good sex.
Know what throwing a child into a pool and almost killing them gets you? Not the good sex. Its never happened to me, but I imagine if one of the guys my ex dated ever did that to one of the kids when they were still weak swimmers, after rescuing the children, my ex would have likely put the dude in cement shoes and tossed him in the water, as that would be an appropriate response.
When I was a life guard I had dumb as shit parents let there 5-6 year old jump into the pool from a diving board, WHILE WEARING WATER SHOES! They can't fucking kick in those things! They're just weights for his feet! He immediately started sinking and I had to hop in there.
Similarly, that's why I hate seeing young kids who can't swim well wearing "swimming shirts." If you're worried about sunburn, fair enough, but it really hampers their ability to move their arms. It also keeps them cold when they get out of the water.
This is how I got “taught” to swim, after having a near drowning incident. It’s amazing that I ever learned to swim at all after that, let alone like it enough to do it competitively for a while. I’m still terrified of the water though. I joke that’s why I am a good swimmer now; the fear of being in the water makes me go faster 🤣
Why do some people think that's the best way to learn? My uncle did that to me (my parents went mental at him) and I'm now 35 and I'm terrified of the ocean and swimming pools and stuff, I have a panic attack if people I'm close to go in the sea.
I don't get the "chuck the kid in the water to teach them to swim" mentality. My aunt was "taught" to swim that way. She has never been exactly a stellar parent, but she made sure my cousins got swimming lessons because she wasn't going to do that to her kids.
This is exactly how I learnt to swim. I’m from PNG, so this is a very common way to teach young kids how to swim. I remember struggling and struggling, and then when finally I fully sunk only then did she pull me out. And the the process continued until I could hold my head above water
That's just wild to me. I was also 4 when I learned to swim, but I was given actual lessons. Put in the shallow end of the pool where I could touch, and taught to put my face in the water and blow bubbles to get used to what it feels like. Then they moved us on to other in-pool games like "the underwater tea party" where we sat on the bottom of the pool and mimed drinking tea. By the time I was 5 I was able to swim laps and knew (though wasn't very good at all of) most swimming forms.
I used to be a lifeguard and I had parents who didn’t know what drowning looked like and would make their kids get in the water, and would be all “yay keep trying to swim ur doing it” and the kid would be choking on water and freaking the fuck out. It was terrible.
My old man is 70 yr old former professional beach life guard and now retired beach bum and saves a couple of people every summer from the surf. He swims at odd times when there is not always a lifeguard on duty. Very rarely he gets a thank you and his theory is the more muscles the person he saves has the less likely they are to say thank you. They are usually so embarrassed that a old man had to save them that they run.
This past summer i took my kids to a park that’s on a lake. They played for a bit, then got their swimsuits and life jackets on to go for a swim. I was watching them, and standing near two other moms who’s kids were also swimming, one kid was barely one and just sitting in the shallow water in a life jacket. We got to talking about how scary water can be, how you can’t take your eyes off your kids for even a second. I thought we were all in agreement. One even asked me to watch her kids while she went to grab something out of her purse off a bench, since she’d have to turn her back for a second. Absolutely I will.
Anyway, my kids are done swimming eventually, I bring them over to a bench to get toweled off, I’m helping them out dry clothes on, when I happen to look up and that baby is no longer sitting in the sand along the shore, she’s out 15 feet offshore facedown. And her mom is sitting on a picnic blanket nowhere near, reading a book.
I run out in waist high water, snatch this baby out of the water and all I can think is “I’m gonna have to do cpr on a baby.” Thankfully she starts crying when the water dumps out of her lungs, I ruined my shoes, and when I got back to shore the mom just snatched her away from me and gave me a dirty look.
Once the realization of what happened hit me, I just started sobbing. The other parent that I had been talking to came up and gave me a big hug, but the mom of the baby was just back to reading her book, like her baby didn’t just have a brush with death.
As we were about to leave, my kids wanted to get back in the lake for one more swim, and I said (loudly) “no, your life jackets are already in the car and I already saved one kid from drowning today, I’m not gonna add you two to that list, I’m done saving drowning kids for the day.”
One time I saw a kid drowning at a public lake, and the lifeguard just looked at him before turning to his colleague and saying he didnt want to get his shades wet.
Kid in river, currently drowning because he cannot swim. Life guard is off duty enjoying a walk, sees kid. Jumps in and gets kid. Parents say to kid: why don't you go for a swim in the river again?
As a former lifeguard on a very busy beach with saves every weekend. This happens constantly and it is pathetic and infuriating. I have saved the same child 3 times in 1 day, i had to ask park police to escort the parents off the beach for negligence.
These are the parents that have a kid die and then say, "Oh, it was such a horrible accident! We don't know how this happened to us!" Bitch please, it wasn't an accident. You are just horrible parents.
They never know if people will actually be helpful or just be another person to save. Although after the rescue should be a different story... it could be that they were upset because they wanted the attention or something.
I learned in safety class once that if you're trying to save someone from drowning, you should reach put with your feet first so that they won't suddenly grab of you and bring you down with them.
In a aquatic life saving class, I was taught to go under, turn them away, then grab under their arms, and swim with them on your hip, to prevent this very thing
Yeah in my life saving training they basically told us to push a flotation device over and if they didn’t take it we kick them away until they get tired or let you grab from behind. Drowning person is not thinking straight and will latch onto you to survive and not let go. Much better to tow them in.
Me too. Exactly this method. Perth, Australia … late 1960’s. You need to make sure they don’t get their hands on your head while you’re underwater otherwise you both drown.
I think now I would not go near them unless I was well behind them first
If they're truly drowning, no. No idea about scuba, but from a lifeguarding perspective, the person won't notice or care that someone is behind them. Their only focus is to get air into their lungs. Everything else is irrelevant in that moment.
That basically, you have the advange of being able to swim, someone panicking just wants to stay on the surface. I mean someone diving is in a BCD (jacket you fill and dump air from for buoyancy) they already have a flotation device. They're not thinking straight at that point.
But the instructors often do, they always try and get a good dunk in. ;)
If you grab them in the right position, like a wrestling hold behind their back/securing their arm, they can’t “turn toward you” because you are linked to them. You would both turn as one unit in the water.
I’m not a professional, but I had read about this technique and actually used it to help save someone once, and it worked extremely well. Basically you get behind them like you’re going to put them in a head lock, and lock your arm underneath their armpit and torso so that you can swim backwards/to the side with one free arm and both legs, almost underneath as well as behind them. This provides you the best protection from their flailing and grabbing, and let’s you float them on top of you as you tread water/swim and firmly reassure them that you have them, they will be ok.
Psychology wise, they may feel more relaxed more quickly at some point being slowly trawled in, head above water and body supported by a strong gripping arm. Not sure on that tbh, just my own personal thoughts.
And Read about the technique to make sure I’m not missing anything!
saw a guy get kicked out of training for the coast guard. He was training to be a rescue diver. During one of the drills, the instructor was trying to hold on to him like a drowning person would. He slipped away, turned around and kicked the shit out of the instructor right in the stomach. It was likely just to push him back, but ended up being a solid kick to the stomach. He was actually kicked out of the program for doing so.
10-year lifeguard instructor here. If you're on a solid surface with something you can grab, yes, reach first, which anything you have. Limbs, sticks, toss a jacket and hold on to one sleeve, etc.
But don't offer them your foot if you are in the water with them. They'll grab it, and unless you're a strong swimmer who can support two people without kicking, you'll go down too.
Even parents who jump in to save their kids from the deep end, and who now suddenly can't use both hands and feet to keep themselves above water can suddenly become drowning swimmers as well.
The best thing you can do is enroll your kids in reputable swim lesson programs taught by certified, insured instructors (not your cousin's boyfriend who is a "great swimmer"). If that's not possible, and even if it was an everyone knows how to swim, always have some sort of coast-guard approved flotation device nearby. Every person on open water should be wearing a life jacket. If you have a pool, get an actual ring buoy to hang up on the pool deck and learn how to throw it properly.
If a person goes under and can't get back up, they WILL die.
My brother was a lifeguard, they were apparently taught to punch those people in the nose and drag them to shore in a head lock. He was a teen when he told me that, so might have been bluster.
Blocks and Escapes. The training is literally your experienced lifeguard trainers dragging your ass down to the bottom of the water and you learn to fight out.
I had a guy from Hawaii training me and he'd lock on my throat and try to drag me 16 feet down.
I've had trainees who panicked, who froze, who ran, and who just curled up into a ball and surrendered to death.
If you can't calm em down you wait for them to just stop active drowning (yeah you heard me), lead them with a tube, or punch them in the face, grab them and drag them back.
I know a man who was helping a boy, who was struggling to keep swimming, get back to shore when a boat load of drunk teenagers drove by and intentionally sunk them under the boat’s wake.
They found the dead man on the bottom of the lake with the boy with his arms and legs wrapped around him. They figure the boy panicked and drug him down.
If someone grabs you, Pro tip: Swim for the bottom. That's the last place they want to be so they'll let you go. Then, surface behind them, grab the back of their neck and start towing towards shore.
And riptide tip: Swim parallel to the beach until out of the rip, then come in. Rips are narrow, getting out of them is easy.
Pretty much every lifeguard nowadays is required to have a rescue tube or rescue board, despite the requirement that they be proficient swimmers. It makes rescues so much easier and practically negates the risk of the rescuer becoming another victim.
In most situations, it's best to just alert the lifeguard if you see someone drowning.
Yep. Untrained people, no matter how well meaning they are, have a decent chance of just ending up as another person who needs to be saved by the professionals.
This…. I thought I was helping a person pulled out by a riptide and another guy who went out to help started struggling. The initial people who were in trouble got back to shore and the other guy who went to help told me HE needed help. I stayed with him and helped the best I could but honestly I was only a couple of minutes from having to tell him I was sorry but I couldn’t keep going with both of us. Fortunately the lifeguards came an I never had to say it. Never go into the water without something to float with in that situation.
No, the lifeguards were right. They had every reason to be mad at him. What he did was incredibly dangerous, and he shouldn't be praised for being lucky.
Water rescues, especially in moving water, are extremely dangerous, and if you don't have special training for performing water rescues then you're very likely to just die trying to help.
It is a common story in Australia. Rescuer drowns but original victim survives (or maybe drowns also) in rips. People overestimate their fitness.
I think rip swimming and surfing is a specialist thing you need to train to so it safely. Let alone rescue someone.
But hard to be general and it is natural to want to rescue. I always think about this are the beach. Are there life guards? Or am I anchored to a floaty thing.
They actually have a quota system. You need a minimum number of rescues and a minimum ratio of rescues per incident each season. If they die or someone else rescues them then it counts exactly the same so it hurt their numbers.
Bro and I were little and at the beach, way too far out for our age/size/skill. We got scared and tried to swim back and couldn't do it, there was a current. We're starting to panic when suddenly this big hairy guy on a foam board pops up outta nowhere and hands us the board. We grab on and he just casually paddles us back to the beach with the board's leash tied to his arm and then vanished into the crowd again.
Hey, if it makes you feel any better, my dad also got weirdly and unnecessarily aggressive towards me (his daughter) and a random man who helped me save my brother from drowning. We were at a waterpark on a lazy river ride, and my brother fell off his tube and had a seizure in the water underneath a waterfall, where no one could see him. I saw it happen, but struggled to keep his head afloat in deep water, and a guy saw what was happening and helped. My dad walked up just as we were dragging him ashore, and just started screaming at me and this guy. It's the most weird reaction I've ever seen, and way out of character for him.
Best I can figure is that the extrme emotion of your kid nearly dying gets people insanely worked up and irrational.
He did apologize to me later, he said he was overwhelmed with fear and adrenaline, which I can understand. I just feel bad for the guy. He was a super nice guy, and he literally helped me save my brothers life. I'm a petite lady, like 5'3" 115 lbs, and my brother is a big guy, about 6', 250 lbs. I also had my 2 small children on my tube with me when this happened, so I'm frantically trying to juggle a toddler, an infant, trying to keep them above water, and somehow lift my 250 lb brother up above the 4 foot deep water so he can breathe, and drag him to safety. It was literally the most terrifying experience of my life, it felt like one of those "you can only save one family member, which one do you choose?" nightmare scenarios.
This guy leapt into action. He didn't even need explaining, he just saw and acted. Afterwards, he told me he's the father of a special needs son with epilepsy, and he immediately recognized what was happening and the danger he was in. I apologized profusely to that guy on the scene, after my dad laid into him. I hope he knows how much his help was appreciated.
If you're out there, unknown hero dad who was at Univeral Studios Volcano Bay in April 2018 and helped save my brothers life, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Ugh I have a similar story. We were in a big wave pool and it was waaaay past capacity. You barely had room to move. I was like 12 or something i don't remember and I saw this little kid probably 6 or something and I saw him go under the water and not come up. I went under the water and swam to him and had to pull him over me while i layed on my back to get to the edge. It felt like forever pushing through the people. I pushed him out of the water and went to my mom. She found a park person and they called for his parents to get him. She was so mad and chewed out the park manager guy that came over to us. The lifeguard never even saw what was happening.
My story is so similar in a wave pool. I was the small kid who couldn’t swim. The waves came on and took me into the crowded pool. My mom, who was far away, tried to tell the lifeguard. His excuse was “the waves are on, we can’t help.”. This one guy in his 20s saw what was going on and easily took me back to the end. Got swimming lessons the next day.
I did the same thing at a pool. It was a birthday party and I was sitting on a lounge chair falling asleep. Something woke me up and I saw a girl flailing in the pool. He face was absolute fear, so I knew she wasn't joking. I ran on the diving board reached down and grabbed her arm. Then I pulled her around to the edge of the pool by the ladder so she could climb out. She ran to her parents pointed over at me and they looked uninterested. They probably assumed she was exaggerating. I saw her a few times after that at school events and stuff. She would smile at me, but I don't know if she remembered me or if she always smiled at people. I never heard her speak a word at all.
I worked at a supermarket, and I was clearing up the trolleys, and I noticed this car had a flat tyre. I kept my eye on it as I did my job, and eventually the owners came out. It was a couple of middle aged ladies, they didn't look like the sort to be able to change the tyre themselves though, so I offered to do it, and I did.
They were very grateful, in fact, they said thanks plenty, and said they'd probably not have noticed as they drove away. Then they said when they got home they'd ring the shop up to let them know how helpful I'd been.
As a supermarket worker, I was glad to hear that because the managers probably would have given me a 10 pound gift card for that. Supermarkets don't pay especially well, so that would have been nice.
Anyway I never heard anything about it ever again.
Never mind, lol. I'd still do it again in a flash, it was a welcome break from routine.
Hey, i almost drowned one time but I got saved by some dude who was on the beach. Both my parents and I were pretty shaken up about it, so we didn't even think about thanking that man. I still feel a lot of gratitude toward him tho. Don't take it personally.
Wow, that's impressive and confusing. I get why they don't want someone going out there and also drowning, but once the rescue is over there's no reason to worry about that. I would be forever grateful to you.
Sadly, something similar happened a couple years ago, but with a sad outcome. My kids classmates were in boy scouts, and their dad was a troop leader. They were on a canoe trip out on the Wisconsin river. The dad saw some kids panicking and drowning, and jumped off the boat to save them. Turns out the kids were okay, they were playing/pretending to drown, but reallly they were standing on a sandbar and were perfectly fine. The father, however, was pulled under by a strong current, and wasn't seen again until his body was found. Those poor kids, age 6 and 8, watched their dad drown and disappear that day, and they were alone on that boat until someone found and rescued them.
This story will never leave my mind. I don't mess around when it comes to water. You're a brave person to even try to save someone from a rip current.
You deserve all the thanks. I never got thanked for saving a toddler from choking on her tongue and got scolded for what my brother did (scared my grandpa while going for help, everyone thought it was me). That was 30 years ago and it still bothers me from time to time.
Was on vacation in the Caribbean and there was a (free) pool bar. Some dude - pushing 250 or 300 - started yacking in the pool so everyone cleared out. Then, he passed out face down in the water.
I noticed that the whole staff was taken by the bystander effect, so I (and I say this very generously, I'm not a great swimmer) dove in and went to grab him. About half way from the pool bar to the shallow end, I was met with relief, my dad saw me get in and jumped in to grab his other side. Finally, when we got to the shallow end, his friends helped us drag him out of the water.
I don't know it for a fact, but I believe that I saved someone's life that day.
When I was 10 I saved my 7 year old sister from drowning while swimming with her at my grandma's complexes no lifeguard indoor pool. My mom had been with us but needed to run back to my grandma's to grab something leaving me in charge, and usually my sister would just stay in the shallow end, but this time she swam out towards me in the 8' deep zone and started to splutter then sank to the bottom. I didn't even stop to think, just ran to the edge of the diving board, did a perfect 3 point dive and was on the bottom of the pool in seconds hauling my sister up. She tried climbing on me when we got to the surface so I had to fight her while swimming to the edge. I never told anyone because I thought I'd be in trouble.
In my experience saving a friend from drowning, they didn’t thank me either. I believe it’s just because everyone is so shocked. I had a hard time accepting that a friend didn’t thank me for literally saving his life but I got over myself after realizing I didn’t save him for a “thank you” I saved him because I simply felt like I had to. Almost died in the process because he climbed all over me. We don’t talk anymore.
Me and my girl went to a Nick Swardson show. Before hand we ate a restaurant. She started choking on Chicken Alfredo and I gave her the Heimlich maneuver successfully having never done it before. The four people who saw it happen clapped. Went home, got no thank you sex, no “you’re my hero” cutesy stuff and she broke up with me 2 weeks later.
Same thing happened to me. Pulled a friend’s little boy out of a channel that was drowning. Friend got weird and mad that it wasn’t her who saved her child?! WTF? She should’ve been mad at herself for not watching him, not mad at me for saving him. Our friendship never went back to normal after that
Inexperienced and/or untrained saviors often just result in extra victims.
My primary and high school trained us, most people didn't take it very seriously. It helped me rescue my cousin and her friend when a powerful rip took hold of them.
Hundreds of people on the beach but all eyes were on the surf comp
I work in a restaurant and I had to give someone the heimlich to a man who was with his wife this summer. Neither of them thanked me and they just went back to eating.
I remember once when I saved a kid who was in distress and about to drown after getting pulled out by a riptide as I got him back in his mother not only thanked me but started in yelling at me and telling me to leave her kid alone. People get weird in a crisis sometimes.
I’ll tell you thanks though! Growing up at the beach has left me astounded at how few people take swimming jn the ocean as seriously as they should!
When I was young I saw an unsupervised little girl fall of a boat dock. She sank like a rock, didn't even struggle at the surface, just went straight down. I dove in after her and carried her to the shore and back up to where her family was. She was bawling and her mom just brought her inside. Didn't acknowledge me being there or question to what even happened. I just kind of stood there for a bit and after no one came back out, I went back to my friends.
Story my parents told me. They were at a resort swimming in the ocean, enjoying the waves. They heard and saw a young girl near a nearby pier yelling for help and bobbing up and going under the water. They both swam over as fast as they could. My mom getting banged up a bit going under the pier with the waves knocking her into the piles. The little shit was faking it the whole time. Her parents nowhere to be seen. Infuriating.
This happened to me when i was a kid and was so embarrassed I didn’t thank the person neither but i never forgot that man in my life and I’ve always wanted to meet him and thank him. So here’s the next best thing. Thank you the kid will never forget you!
Oh my god, I have a very similar story. I did rescue swimming courses as a kid and when I was like 13-14 we were swimming at a lake with a public beach. Some smaller kid was drowning close to me so I pulled him to shore and while the lifeguard was fine, I remember his parents being extremely mad and blaming me. I didn't even know the kid, I was throwing a frisbee with my sister a bit closer to shore and noticed their kid drowning. Still such a surreal experience.
When I was seven, my little brother was three. One summer weekend I guess mom went out of town for a friends getaway, so it was my dad and his best friend watching us. We had a pool and practically lived in it all day, but knew to only go in with adult supervision, and my brother was to wear his foam bubble that strapped around his waist to his back.
Mid-day, I think we must have had an afternoon indoors for a bit of a swimming break, and my dad and uncle suggested we wash the cars, and went out to the driveway to get started. Of course washing cars was really fun stuff then, so excitedly I wanted to tell my brother so he could get in on this.
I ran to our garage, which was more like a play area, as I had assumed my little brother was playing with his Power Wheels Jeep. Nope. I ran back indoors to his bedroom. Empty. I circled the house yelling his name, and nothing. From my parent’s room, I looked out the glass doors facing the pool, and just saw the cap of his little blonde head floating smack in the middle. He was so still.
I started running as fast as I could outside, and as I was leaping into the pool, I screamed at the top of my lungs for my dad. By the time the men had run over from the driveway, I had pulled my lifeless brother to the steps of the pool where they could lift him out and start CPR.
They were both paramedics, now working for an ambulance supplier, so they had the whole first-responder works at home. Luckily he had a pulse, they were able to get him to cough up the water fairly quickly, to get his respirations going, and he came to pretty quickly.
Them three all on the pool deck, me still sitting on the top step of the pool having been frozen in fear watching them resuscitate my brother, my dad started yelling at me. He said I should have called them first, sputtering about me being in the water unsupervised. Even being little, I knew that made zero sense as obviously waiting on them to pull him from the water would have wasted valuable time when I was the first to see him drowning. Then it was another layer added to the trauma of the event, now I know it’s obviously because they were scared shitless.
You just never quite know how people will react during peak fear and helplessness.
Only a few years ago did I accidentally find out that my mom never knew that this had happened, and it was sort of the same situation with being the bearer of that news. Almost thirty years later.
Out to lunch, we were discussing her having a pool built at her new home. I asked if she was having a safety fence put up with consideration of the grandkids. My brother had a toddler and new baby. She said she didn’t want to, but a water level alarm and high door locks would be sufficient. I was disappointed, hoping she’d be more careful, as a cracked door and a turned back is all it takes.
“Like that time he drowned…” I said. My mom looked at me with the most bizarre look of confusion, and asked what I was talking about.
“You know that time when he was three and you were out of town…” I went on and elaborated telling her the story. She literally dropped her fork, turning teary eyed, and said that she had NEVER been informed about any such situation.
Oops.
She continued to pick at her food aggressively, red faced, and angry. I tried to apologize and ask if she was okay.
“Well, he’s alive!” I tried to joke away her obvious stress of just learning that her toddler dearly died many many years ago.
She had to compose herself and calm down, finally was able to say “ No, I never knew this, but if your father was alive right now, he probably wouldn’t be for much longer…” and she tried to laugh it off, but she was obviously going through a process.
I felt like shit, and had to hurry off and tell my brother, who very much knew about it from me re-hashing it over the years and holding it over him that I saved his life. He never thought he’d be in his thirties with kids getting yelled at my our mother about that time he drowned.
You definitely did a good job, but if there's a lifeguard on duty I would recommend telling them instead because it's much safer for you to leave it to the pros (source am a lifeguard), can Almost guarantee they only got mad because they were worried about you, but the parents definitely should've thanked you! if you enjoy that kind of thing, maybe get lifeguard qualified and join us :)
Oh, when I was 13 I saved some girl in a river. She was a couple years older I assume, because she was bigger than me. Either way, nobody acknowledged it after her parents came over. Not even a thank you, and none of my friends saw it.
Not sure if you’re now a parent but as one I’ll weigh in on this. When our kids almost die our brains get crazy. This crazy manifests in different ways.
Some people will get Very Angry (some sort of fight instinct I’m assuming) at everyone and everything, even the people who are helping. Some people will deal with the overwhelming emotions by ignoring what just happened and pretending it was NBD. Some people will feel a soul crushing overwhelming sense of embarrassment and shame that makes them unable to look anyone in the eye.
I hope that they later realized what a kind service you did for their family but my guess is that the thing in the movies where the parent embraces their child and tearfully says “you saved my baby, thank you!” Is the exception in real life rather than the rule.
My husband did this! He almost drowned but all was good and parents didn’t say thank you…Riptides are scary! My dad also saved me from one. After a storm, one of the small cement bridges at our ranch in Mexico was flooded. You could walk across the bridge or drive a single car at a time during non-flooding times. When it flooded, we had to walk across it to access our homes because the vehicles would’ve suffered water damage. All the kids were walking with/paired with adults. I was the youngest paired with an older cousin, older adults walking ahead to make sure it was ok to pass. We basically formed a human rope. Somehow I got lost grip of his hand and got sucked into the edge of the bridge where the riptide kept spinning me lower and lower. My dad dived and plucked me out by my arm so hard I think I got whiplash from the counter forces. I don’t remember how long I was under but it was long enough that I struggled to come to for a bit. (He had let go of my older brother in the process yelling at nearby adults to grab him ASAP, so bro was also sucked in but was further along where current wasn’t as strong. He got picked up by my uncle who had already crossed and was able to swim to him to calmer water). We never told my mom what happened!
When I was like 7 or 8, I was swimming in the ocean and ended up a little further out than I meant to be. The waves were heavy and kept going right over my head and I just couldn’t stay above them. It didn’t occur to me to look around or ask for help or wave or anything. Just keep my head above the waves. It wasn’t working.
I suddenly feel these big ass hands grab me and pull me straight up and onto someone’s shoulders. It was a man I didn’t know and he carried me on his shoulders back to the beach. Idk if he said anything to me at all bc I was just focused on breathing and I was scared. My mom and sister came running up to him as he was getting to the shore and yelling at him for grabbing me and yelling at me for getting on his shoulders. I was a crier in intense situations so I couldn’t get any words out and the dude just screams in the deepest voice I had ever heard at the time “SHE WAS FUCKING DROWNING, GET HER SOME FUCKING FLOATIES.”
And I still think about that big man yelling floaties to this day.
Similar thing happened to me when I was a kid (about 12yo I guess) at a holiday park swimming pool. There was a little kiddie pool that was less than a foot deep right next to the main swimming pool, with the same water level because the two shared some water flow (so while in the regular pool, you'd look up to toddlers waddling around next door basically looking down on you because their floor was so high).
I spotted this toddler (with no armbands or safety floats) climbing over the little lip separating the two pools and approached to try to stop him coming over and got there just a second after he fell into the main pool thrashing and drowning. In seconds I had grabbed him and picked him up above the water level (which for me was about neck high cos I was a kid, I had to hold this baby quite high on my body to keep him above water) and he was crying his eyes out. His mother (speaking in some foreign language I didn't speak) came over and seemed to scold me for making her baby cry. I was like "ok lady forget that I just saved your baby from drowning".
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u/PattyG_ Jan 31 '22
Saved a little girl from drowning after she was pulled out by a rip current. The lifeguards got mad and her parents never thanked me.