[Jims5543]

When Mrs5543 and I were newlyweds we both had a weekday off from work and went to a deserted beach for the day. Never saw another person all day.

We were in the water cooling off, we had swam to a sandbar and were hanging out on there, when we got sucked up into a very strong rip current. Since I surfed a lot I knew what was up immediately, what concerned me most was how fast it had pulled us out.

We swam to the side of it and were trying to work our way back to shore, it must have been shifting or the currents around it were pushing us back into it, over and over.

Any headway we made getting back in kept getting erased. The entire time I knew what was happening and knew not to panic and tried not to get her upset or panicked I just tried to stay cool and work through it.

I have to admit, after 4 failed attempts to get back in I was trying to come to grips with drowning. Not how I wanted to go out.

I decided in my head to give it my final try as I was losing energy and was not sure if there would be 6th try. I was exhausted and already drinking sea water.

I decided to go to the bottom and see how deep we were, I could stand on the bottom, reach up and hold Mrs5543's thighs. I grabbed a little lower, pushed her up, so she could push me down and started walking towards shore.

I am pretty sure I was going to drown at that point and I just wanted to give her a chance to get in. Suddenly the ocean let go, I was making time heading in. I came up for air 2X losing ground both times but not as much as trying to swim.

We finally got to chest deep water and got back into shore, I collapsed on the beach for a very long time, too exhausted to even move.

We only swam out at attended beaches after that and when on deserted beaches we had a waist deep rule.

We loved finding rips like that when surfing, I never wanted to see one again after that.



Many years later a good client of mine would drown in a rip current trying to save his kids, who were on boogey boards. He panicked, swam out, and drown.