Wednesday, June 28, 2023.
My life almost ended this afternoon. I am in Nicaragua and took the Maria Albertina orphanage to Montemar today. After lunch, 4 of us went to the beach: me, Xochitl, my Nicaraguan translator, Natalia, my Ukrainian translator, and Ervin, our driver. In my experience, the ocean at Pochimil Beach is not particularly dangerous, but does have the usual mild undercurrent or riptide concerns common to all Pacific beaches in Nica. Natalia went into deeper water and looked fine. I was there yesterday, and there was a high sandbar right after a short section of deep water, so I wasn’t worried. After a while, Nataliia started heading in. She had a smile on her face and looked very happy. I considered going out farther to the sandbar, but chose to go in with her. Almost immediately, I knew I was in trouble. It did not feel like a strong undertow or a rip tide, but it was powerful enough to cause problems. It took 3 minutes to swim out there, but it took much longer to get back. I’m 68, an average swimmer, and not good at treading water or floating, so I quickly panicked.
Almost immediately after my initial panic, Natalie said, “Vinny, help.” I tried to swim forward in a panic but got nowhere. It’s amazing how many things can go through your mind in a moment of crisis. In that moment, I thought if I save myself and she drowns, I’ll never be able to live with myself, so it’s better if we both drown together.
When she said, “Vinny, help” a second time, I swam over to her and instinctively threw her forward with each oncoming wave. When I say ‘instinctively,’ it was like a robotic action that had nothing to do with thought. Like recoiling from a pinch. I had no idea what I was doing. It was all a mindless reaction. She kept repeating the same words every 10 or 15 seconds: “Vinny, help.” She said nothing else. I could hear the desperation in her voice, but when I grabbed her arm to pull her forward, she did not become physically frantic and grab me. That almost certainly would have killed us both. She was still dog paddling and staying afloat. I kept pushing myself, but the shore looked very far away, and the water remained deep. I had the distinct feeling of desperate hopelessness that this could be it for both of us.
Over and over, I repeated the process, throwing her forward when a wave came in, but I was growing increasingly tired and stressed. I started heaving and wondered how long I could keep it up. Again, the thought flashed through my mind, Is this it? Will both of us drown? I pushed myself forward, but my strength faded with every second. Every time I tried to touch, it was still too deep. I could not believe it was taking so long. I was losing hope by the second.
Then my toes touched the sand. I grabbed her arm and held her for about 5 seconds, but I wanted to get a little closer to shore before I stopped. When I went forward, the water got deeper again, and I thought, It’s still not over!” Finally, I could stand and hold her until she could stand, and we walked out holding hands tightly. I was heaving and shaking, and my eyes were bulging bright red. All the kids came to the ocean about 5 minutes after it happened, but we did not tell anyone, including the leaders.
I write this email with a fascination that I live to talk about it. Few people are as lucky as we are. I continued to heave heavy breaths for about 5 minutes, and my throat was shriveled and sore from all the salt water I drank and inhaled. About 20 minutes after it happened, I lay in a beach recliner. I started thinking about plans for the next few days and thought, “How am I alive to be making plans? How did we both survive that event? When we were out there, I knew we were on our own. There were no lifeguards or swimmers near us. It was all on us to survive, and I can’t figure out how we did. Why did I decide not to go out further? Why ddidn’tNatalie freak out? I could hear the desperation in her voice, but she managed to stay afloat without grabbing me. How did I remain focused under pressure? How did I have the strength to throw her forward and stay afloat? Why was the undercurrent strong enough to put us in danger but not strong enough to kill us? The storyline could have been different if any of these situations had changed. No one would have known exactly what happened except that we went out too far and drowned. But now that we survived, you have a story. Too much coincidence here. All the events occurred as a “setup, “allowing me to tell that story like a dramatic script written for a movie with a happy ending.
But why? The grace of God? Many good people drown, die in a car crash, or are killed in some other freak accident. Why those people and not us? If God exists, why did He allow us to go out to a certain point but prevent us from going too far? Why not stop us before the danger? If he doesn’t exist, how could there be so many coincidences that resulted in our survival? Why are we alive and many others dead in similar circumstances? Something else is happening here—more of a mystery than a miracle. An enigma I can feel but can’t put into words.
When we got back to land, my translator, Xochilt, said my hat had washed ashore 15 minutes ago, but she still could not see us in the water, and her heart began to beat rapidly. Even from the shore, she feared the worst. Natalie mentioned that I didn’t say anything in the water, but my eyes were bulging red — indicative of my own fear and desperation. There is so much going on here, all encapsulated in the firm conviction that I should not be alive, but I am. I’ll never be able to figure it out. We walked out of the water as ghosts. Aberrations that should no longer exist, but there we were.