A normal family beach day quickly turned into a disaster after an entire family got caught in a rip current at Panama City Beach, Fla. according to a report in nwfdailynews.com.
Roberta Ursrey, her husband, mother, nephews and sons were near the M.B. Miller County Pier when the incident occurred.
Ursrey just got out of the water when she turned around and saw her sons very far from shore.
She started to walk down the beach and that’s when she heard their screams.
“They were screaming and crying that they were stuck,” she said.
“People were saying, ‘Don’t go out there,'” she added.
But when Ursrey and her family swam out to get them, the rip current was so strong it trapped them as well.
Nine of her family members were stuck in about 15 feet of water, one of which included her mother, who suffered a massive heart attack during the incident.
“I honestly thought I was going to lose my family that day,” she said. “It was like,’Oh God, this is how I’m going,'” she said.
But before they knew it, two good samaritans would start a chain to save them.
Jessica Simmons and her husband were having a beach side dinner when she saw the family struggling.
She noticed a bunch of beach goers looking out in the direction the family was drowning.
“I automatically thought they had seen a shark,” Simmons said. “I ran back to shore and my husband ran over to them. … That’s when I knew someone was drowning.”
Simmons is used to helping people, she once walked 11 miles after a tornado to help people clean up after the storm and mend their lives.
When she saw the family in trouble, she grabbed her boogie board and started swimming toward them.
Her husband then created a human chain to bring the swimmers back to shore.
“These people are not drowning today,” Simmons remembered saying to herself. “It’s not happening. We’re going to get them out.”
Eighty people stretched over 100 yards to the swimmers, and even those who could not swim stayed in the shallow areas, just so they could help.
“I got to the end, and I know I’m a really good swimmer,” Simmons said. “I practically lived in a pool. I knew I could get out there and get to them.”
Simmons found Ursrey’s exhausted mother at the end of the chain and said her eyes were rolling back at that point.
The entire human chain fought as hard as they could to bring the children and the adults back to shore.
“It was the most remarkable thing to see,” Simmons said. “These people who don’t even know each other and they trust each other that much to get them to safety.”
Ursrey does not remember being rescued, only walking up back to shore after she passed out.
Her mother ended up in the ambulance, but was brought back to life. She is still in the hospital.
Her nephew also had a broken hand, but everyone else is recovering just fine.
“I am so grateful,” Ursrey said. “These people were God’s angels that were in the right place at the right time. I owe my life and my family’s life to them. Without them, we wouldn’t be here.”
Simmon’s acknowledged that it is good to see people are able to drop what they are doing to help out others in an instant.
“It’s so cool to see how we have our own lives and we’re constantly at a fast pace, but when somebody needs help, everybody drops everything and helps,” Simmons said. “That was really inspiring to see that we still have that.
“With everything going on in the world, we still have humanity,” she added.
