Rip currents swept away a Florida family. Then beachgoers formed a human chain.
When Jessica and Derek Simmons first saw the beachgoers pausing to stare toward the water, the young couple just assumed someone had spotted a shark.
It was Saturday evening, after all, peak summer season in Panama City Beach for overheated Florida tourists to cross paths with curious marine life. Then they noticed flashing lights by the boardwalk, a police truck on the sand and nearly a dozen bobbing heads about 100 yards beyond the beach, crying desperately for help.
Six members of a single family — four adults and two young boys — and four other swimmers had been swept away by powerful and deceptive rip currents churning below the water’s surface.
“These people are not drowning today,” Jessica Simmons thought, she told the Panama City News Herald . “It’s not happening. We’re going to get them out.”
She was a strong swimmer and fearless in the face of adversity. But others had tried to reach them and each previous rescue attempt had only stranded more people.
There was no lifeguard on duty, and law enforcement on the scene had opted to wait for a rescue boat. People on the beach had no rescue equipment, only boogie boards, surf boards and their arms and legs.
Read more here :
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/07/11/a-riptide-swept-away-a-florida-family-then-beachgoers-formed-a-human-chain/?utm_term=.50e1a9d6d351
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Good News Tuesday ! Eighty strangers, more or less, link up to save others.
I read just a day or so ago that someone had their legs bitten by a shark somewhere on the Florida coast. I spent many winter vacations in Florida, and was not aware of the dangers that lurk there, but then I never saw a crocodile because I never ventured into the Everglades.
I was in Florida on an everglade tour and we saw alligators. The boat driver did the touristy thing and made a big deal of feeding them raw meat. Scary critters ! Its an environment all its own and very beautiful.
Great article, 80 strangers save a family...How cool is that.