So today was… eventful. To sum it up, here’s the basic story. Natalie and I went with her family to the white sand beaches at the Picton Sand Banks. Now I wasn’t initially going to go due to the poor weather forecast, but after I saw how important it was to her I decided to give it a go. It turned out to be a good thing I did. Long story short, Natty and I were out in the water and had swum very, very far out from shore. Now this wasn’t a problem for either of us as I’m a strong swimmer and Natty’s reasonably good as well. When we were far enough out that we couldn’t see anyone else anywhere near by, we heard a woman scream for help in the distance. We could just make out the flailing, panicking figure of a woman at least a hundred yards or so (about the length of a football field or a bit more) away. As it turned out the woman, who could not swim, had been floating on her inflatable raft and gotten carried away by the current while she was daydreaming. Now well past the point that anyone could see her she somehow fell off the raft, panicked and essentially started to drown. For some unknown bloody stupid reason, Sandbanks has NO lifeguards. Being the stronger swimmer of the two of us and just a little closer to her, I immediately dove forward, praying all the way that I would reach her in time, and raced like a bat out of hell to the flailing woman. Somehow I managed to cover that distance in about a minute or so. She had been barely hanging on and now her head was going under. I grabbed the lady and pulled her up, trying my best to calm her and keep her head above water as I instructed her on what to do next. I hooked my arm under her armpit and started to tow her the long way back in. I managed to tow her roughly half way and at first she calmed a bit and was fine, but she kept looking to the shore so far away and began panicking anew. This is when she started shoving down on my shoulders. I had spent so much energy just trying to reach her that I had nothing left to carry her, and in the effort… I had an asthma attack. An asthma attack any time can be scary. An asthma attack in the water trying to save a drowning woman is another thing entirely. At this point Natalie reached us. From there Natty quickly grabbed the woman and supporting almost her entire weight towed her back all the rest of the way, keeping her much calmer from there. But Natalie, towing the woman the rest of the way, could not help me. I forced myself to calm down and breath as best as I could floating on my back and kicked my way back to where I could touch bottom and rest. While I was racing towards the lady in the first place, Natty was desperately getting the attention of our friend (and her sister’s boyfriend) Mike Overend, who was now approaching as well. Nat got the lady safely back to shore where her family came running to receive her and get her to any medical attention that may be required. I’m glad to say that in the end she was well and undoubtedly will never make the same mistake again. Thanks to Mike we even managed to return her raft to shore. It’s a very good thing we went after all.
Posted on: Sun, 01 Sep 2013 02:55:03 +0000
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