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I could see them now, 20 feet away.
Two little boys. Their mom, dad, grand-
mother. A young man. A young woman.
A couple. Nine people total.
“I’m really good,” I said. “We’ll get
them out.” I went into mission mode.
I kicked hard, cutting through the
churning water. The mom was on her
back, trying desperately to hold up her
sons. “Save my boys!” she gasped. The
boys were crying. I gave them the boo-
gie boards and pushed them to the end
of the human chain. They got passed
along to shore superfast.
I took one of the boards and went for
their mom next. “I’m so tired,” she said.
“You can do it,” I said to her. “Just
keep kicking.”
The last man in line grabbed her and
shot her down the chain to safety.
I got the boogie board back, swam to
the grandmother. She was in bad shape.
The young man, the first woman’s neph-
ew, was holding her head above water. I
tried to help her onto the boogie board.
Once, twice. Six times. She kept falling
off. Each time, the nephew dove downand brought her back up, but he was
weakening. The grandmother’s eyes
rolled back in her head.
I was not about to let this lady die!
A surfer had paddled out, and the cou-
ple were draped on his board. “Can we
put this woman on there?” I asked. The
couple slid off the board and held on to
the sides. But we couldn’t get the grand-
mother up there. That’s when Derek
swam up beside me. He threw the grand-
mother onto the surfboard. The nephew
curled his arm around her to keep her
there. Then we waited for a wave to push
the board to the end of the chain.
I swam back out for the last two
people: the boys’ father and the young
woman. She’d floated out of the rip-
tide. Two emergency lifeguards had
arrived. They reached her and used
the human chain to send her to shore.
I headed for the father. He was a big
man, twice my size. Too big to tow.
“I can touch the ground now,” he
said. He walked slowly to shore.
I went back to Derek and the kids.
The human chain unraveled. An am-
bulance arrived. EMTs took the grand-
mother, who’d had a heart attack, and
the young woman, who’d taken in too
much water, to the hospital. But both
would be all right.
Derek’s last-minute picnic didn’t
give me time to go into mission mode.
That’s because God had a bigger mis-
sion in mind for everyone on the beach
that day. Together we saved nine peo-
ple from drowning. Just as it had for
me six years earlier, a human chain
made all the difference.PRAYER + ACTION Jessica and Derek
helped lead the rescue.