I'm not really sure where to start, but perhaps by saying everyone is OK. It has been a most um... interesting trip so far. I am at my sister's house, borrowing her wireless network, and catching up on all the Internet stuff I haven't seen for the last week or so. And we are thanking God for His grace.
We started by driving down to Daytona Beach for the visit with John's parents. A couple of things happened on the drive down that were unpleasant but relatively minor (a lost credit card being the big one, but all that really means is a phone call). Got to town, checked the kids in with his parents, checked us in at the beach side hotel.
We went swimming fairly early the next morning. The kids were dropped off by the grandparents, two of John's sisters joined us, there was wave jumping and sand digging.
John almost drowned. He got caught in a current parallel to the beach, and ended up in an deeper area where he couldn't touch bottom. He was far enough from us that I could see him, but couldn't hear him or tell that he was in trouble. Rachel ran down to "swim with Dad" and ran back to tell me she thought he was calling for help. I ran down towards him, heard him calling, and started screaming for help.
God sent us our brother-in-law and two strangers, who brought him in safely. He's OK.
Perhaps I can write more detail later, but it still makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. You can know intellectually that things like this happen, or even that you could be hit by a bus at any time, but it is a horrible gut punch when you are face to face with it.
The rest of the trip has been fine. I'll post more about it later. But I had to get this out, and over with. Thank you, to the strangers who helped save him. I will never be able to thank them enough. And thank you, God, for putting them in the right place at the right time.
5 comments:
I'm glad everyone's ok. Try to relax, enjoy the rest of your trip, and don't let this incident make you paranoid in the future.
Thanks for checking in. Call anytime if you need to.
Oh my. Thankfully everyone is safe. May the rest of your trip be more peaceful.
I've been thinking of you.
I'm sooo glad to hear everyone is ok and kudos to Rachel for hearing him call for help. Glad those strangers were there and I hope the rest of your trip is much less exciting in that gut wrenching kind of way.
Hugs
When my daughter Jane was about three, we had a pool party at our home in Austin. Jane could swim but there were some kids there who weren't strong swimmers. We had all these adults standing around, ostensibly watching the kids but a little boy who wasn't a swimmer, pushed Jane under and was keeping himself afloat by keeping her under. If my neighbor had just noticed what was happening and gone in with her clothes on the save Jane, she would have drowned.
It's been five years and I'm still shaking as I write this. From then on, we hired lifeguards for all parties and now I'm not so put out by how up here in the Northeast, the lifeguards on the beaches are really adamant about swimming between the green flags. Secretly, I'm glad to obey THAT rule!
Whoops, I mean if my neighbor HADN'T noticed. (I'm pre-coffee and pre-proofreading, I guess.)
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