Saturday I was asked to chaperone an activity for Ben Franklin High School where my twins go. I was excited and took Hailey to help chaperone. It was hardly chaperoning as the kids were awesome and respectful and kind. We floated, ate, talked, cliff jumped and floated some more. At the end of the day, I told the kids that I wanted to float one more time and so any who wanted to float again needed to be ahead of me on the river so I could make sure all kids were out.
As we were floating, I noticed a group of 6 or 7 kids hop in behind me about 100 yards. We were floating a private part of the river and no one but us had been there all day so I assumed they were part of our group. At the end of the float, I was waiting for those kids. As I waited in my tube with Hailey, I decided to go to the middle of the river and rinse the pebbles out of my swimming suit bottoms. The current was super strong and if I put my hands under the water to mess with my suit, it would knock me over. I struggled to stay upright but the waist deep water felt so nice that I hung out there for a bit.
As I did, I watched a mom and dad and 2 little kids approach the river. The dad was clearly intoxicated and was standing on the shore with a toddler. The mom (who we later realized had been drinking as well) wanted to be in the water and began to enter the current with the little girl (about 9 yrs old). The girl was petrified and crying that she didn't want to go. The mom tugged on her and they began to wade in despite the child's protests. They were facing the current just like me but were farther downstream at the point where the water got very deep and the river made a turn. In this spot the river gets 3-4 times wider than where we were. Suddenly, the panicked little girl, who clearly couldn't swim, fell and banged into her mom's legs, knocking her off her feet. She struggled to regain her footing but was quickly swept into deep water. Unable to reach to stand up and fighting a panicked child, she hollered for her husband. He left the baby and ran into the water. All three struggled to keep the little girl afloat but she was pulling them under and they were being swept farther and farther into open water.
I yelled for Hailey to throw me my tube and I hurled it as far as I could. It only made it halfway to the family. The mom left the dad and girl and swam towards the tube. She and I reached the tube at the same time and she grabbed on and began using it to float. I urged her to let go of the tube so I could get it to her husband who was mostly submerged and struggling under the weight of their frantic child. She said she would take it to them but she made no progress. In a panic, I told her to let go and swim to shore but she wouldn't. I looked over at the dad who was now underwater and only surfacing rarely and realized that he would drown before she could get it to him. I urged her again to let go and she hesitated. I pushed her arm off the tube and swam with it as fast as I could to the other two.
By the time I got to them, the child was hysterical and the dad was coughing and choking. It was terrifying. The little girl continued to struggle and fight us. I finally layed on the tube and pulled her by her shorts onto it. At this point, she finally stopped struggling and just cried. The current continued to carry us farther into the bend of the river and the dad was exhausted and completely spent (not to mention drunk). I had to swim harder than I have ever swam to get us out of the current and the long upstream swim back. By the time we reached the shore I was exhausted. Hailey was luckily there to hold & comfort the toddler who was upset and crying. I sat on the shore for a couple minutes to catch my breath. The family never said a word to me. Not one word. Maybe they were embarrassed, maybe they didn't want us to notice they were drunk, I'm not sure. We picked up our tubes and walked back to the bus. It took about 20 mins for the adrenaline in my body to stop making me shake.
It makes me cringe to think what could have happened if we had not been there.
I'm not sure if they will even remember what happened tomorrow, but I will.
What I learned:
God knows where we need to be way before we do.
God loves people even when they are making stupid decisions.
