No Day at the Beach

I was visiting family in Cape Carteret, NC a few weeks ago, and on October 9--the second day of my vacation--I spent several hours on the public access beach on Emerald Isle.

I've always been intimidated by the ocean, having heard of rip currents and all the nasty jellyfish and stingray stories, but I decided to swim a bit, read, and layout in the sun. I made a few read-swim-sunbathe/dry cycles before digging into my packed lunch and settling into my beach chair to work on a book I'd been wanting to finish.

At about 3 pm I was sitting in my borrowed beach chair reading when I heard shouting from someone swimming off to my right, not too far from shore. Some teenagers had been goofing around earlier that day, and I recall thinking I wished they'd stop yelling back and forth to one another as it was becoming distracting. Soon after that I realized that the person yelling was becoming more and more agitated. I looked up and noticed that he was getting others' attention as well.

It was then that I looked further out and noticed a smaller head bobbing in the water much further out. I then realized the person yelling was trying to get help for the person pulled out by the rip current. By this time, several others began to rush into the water, and a few people already in the water began swimming out to the person in trouble. I remember hearing someone call back to the house behind us, "Call 911."

It was at this point that I looked out and saw what I believed to be two fins sticking out of the water, moving toward the person in trouble.

This all seemed so not-real to me. It didn't occur to me when the person was yelling, "Call 911" that I actually held my cell phone in my hand (I had just been checking to see what time it was before all of this had caught my attention). It never occurred to me that it was even a phone, or that I could call for help. I sat there holding the umbrella in place (the wind was picking up, so it kept falling over), with my book and phone in my hand, watching this all play out and not moving to do anything. Truthfully, I'm not a great swimmer, and there were people both helping in the water and calling for help, so there was nothing I COULD have done, but looking back I think it just didn't register that what I was seeing was real. I always thought I'd be someone who would do something when an emergency arose, but that didn't happen.

At this point, a boat of fishermen was passing by, and several swimmers were waving for the boat to come and help the person in distress. At this point I wasn't sure if he had been bitten by a shark or what, but I was amazed that the fishermen seemed to understood they were needed and adjusted course to come in and pick up the injured person; after all, I didn't realize what was going on, and I was closer to the action. After what seemed like an eternity of what I can only describe as the fishermen 'fishing' in the water to pull something out, the boat turned and headed to shore off to my left, no more than 200 feet away.

When it reached shore, a group of a dozen or more swimmers converged on the boat, and I saw a young woman jump into the boat and begin what looked like CPR compressions. By this time, the first sirens could be heard coming up the beach, and some volunteer lifeguard-type people (the beach of course had no lifeguards on duty) showed up, talking into their radios. Soon a Rescue truck with a Seadoo on a trailer arrived, and they pulled the person from the boat on a backboard and began to work on him on the far side of the truck beyond my view.

The activity continued for another 15 minutes or so, with a flurry of activity at the truck and another group of people around the fishermen's boat, trying to help them bail the water out and get it back out to sea while being buffeted by waves. I saw someone obviously connected personally (mother?, grandmother?, aunt?) to the person in distress being told by bystanders where she could go to meet up with the ambulance. Many people were milling around, not sure what to do. Several people packed up their gear and headed off the beach. I sat holding the umbrella....

Finally I saw an IV being held high, and rescue workers recruiting men to help carry the person on the backboard off the beach. I'd assumed it was a young person, but it was then clear the person being helped was a heavyset older man. I then realized the woman I'd seen must have been his wife. A woman who'd had a blanket set out next to mine came walking back to me from the truck, and I asked what had happened. She just said, "He drowned. All of that is to put the folks watching at ease...he's gone." I sat for a few minutes, but eventually just packed up my stuff and headed home.

Turns out there was no shark; the 'fins' must have just been waves that reflected the light strangely combined with an overactive imagination. The next morning the newspaper told the story of a 60-year old man who drowned while saving his wife. She had gotten caught in a rip current, and he was somehow able to get out to her and get her to safety, but in the process overexerted himself and wasn't able to make it in.

I'd never seen anyone die before my eyes like that. The whole thing played out in front of me, and it took less than 40 minutes for things to go from lighthearted vacation to the sobering reality of how easily we pass from this life to the next. I think I can truthfully say that I'm not concerned for myself; I know what will happen to me when I leave this life. But I think I'm more resolved to spend my life living in the reality that at any moment, someone could pass from this earth right before my eyes...