Her Eyes
By Austin Neff
It was the perfect day; sand under my toes, perfect skimboarding conditions, monster waves, clear water, bright sun and surrounded by friends. I was celebrating my seventeenth birthday at the beach and it was a nice relaxing day; little did I know it would change my life forever.
My friends and I had been at the beach for a couple of hours and began to become fatigued from skimboarding so we took a break, ate lunch, and decided to body surf. Four friends and I made our way into the water, braced each wave, swam a little farther and made it out to neck deep water. The waves were powerful, but were not crashing as intensely as I have seen. Next the unexpected happened, a rip current struck.
Once my group of friends realized what surrounded us, we saw that it was too intense, knew we couldn’t swim with it, so we powered our way out of it. As we all began to make our way in, I heard a little girl crying to her older sister saying she couldn’t move. She was maybe about the age of eight, barely treading water, starting to panic and was extremely scared. I looked on shore, the lifeguards were signaling for all swimmers to come back in, I signaled for them to come out and help the two sisters. At that moment, my lifesaving classes went into action.
I swam out to the child, kept eye contact, communication, reassured her that she was safe and I was going to get her onshore. When I reached her she was shaking, shaking from the cold, and shaking from fright. Once I held her in my arms, I looked into her eyes and she knew she was safe. I began to swim in and a wave engulfed us. I told her to hold her breath and to not let go, she didn’t. She clung to me, literally for her life. At that point I could walk, and I had her cradled in my arms. Halfway to shore, the lifeguard met us, thankful I was there for her.
We got back to shore and that was it. She ran up the beach to find her mom, and the lifeguards went back to doing their thing. I never got her name; I do not know anything about her, except she has beautiful light brown eyes which taught me a great deal. The contact I had with her for less than five minutes changed my life. It was at that moment I realized I could make a difference in someone’s life, she was so happy I was there and her eyes told me that. I was able to act on my own, enter a situation not knowing anything about it, and take charge. I didn’t think twice about going in so I was safe. Instead I saved her life, and her eyes said, “Thank you.”
>> Post your comments
>> Notify me of future VSA arts literary calls
Comments