Posted on 07/11/2013 7:34:02 PM PDT by lowbridge
A mother fought to keep her family alive as they clung to their capsized boat in cold water infested with jelly fish while her brother swam for five hours to get help.
Contessa L. Riggs, 43, of Washington D.C., was fishing off the coast of Deal Island, Md., on Tuesday with her brother, John Franklin Riggs, her 70-year old father, 9-year-old niece and 3-year-old son, when a thunder storm struck.
"It was sundown. The water suddenly became very choppy and a wave crashed into the boat, filling the boat with water," Riggs told ABC News.
-snip
Riggs knew that nobody was going to start looking for them until the next day, so she and John decided they had to act.
"Our family wasn't expecting us back until tomorrow, and we didn't think we'd be able to make it that long," Riggs said.
"John and I looked at each other and he said, 'Should I try it?' I knew he was talking about swimming to shore. So I told him to try it. But we had no idea if he would make it to shore," she added.
The sun had set by the time Rigg's brother left his father, niece, nephew, and sister on the capsized boat. He swam for almost five hours, reaching shore around 1 a.m.
"John made it to the beach but he was so tired, he could not walk. So he crawled to the nearest house he saw. Luckily they had dogs, which woke the family up. And even luckier for us, that family had the personal number for the fire chief," Riggs said.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Thank God he made it.
Five hours... Wow!
Wow.
Thanks, lowbridge, for posting this.
It’s good to read really good news.
That is one tough and brave young man. The odds were extremely against him. God guided him in.
You mean thank God for teaching him how to swim?
There must be details not included. I can’t imagine it’d take the man 5 hrs to swim to shore if he was just “off the coast of Deal Island”. That is in the middle of a bunch of islands. They must’ve surely really been in the Bay.
Glad for them all.
Yes, this is a great story, this brave man’s guardian angels were working overtime. Praise God he made it to shore.
Hero hero hero
They are still out there. God love them.
It is odd that a calm came over them in the midst of their terror
“Everybody is fine. But really, there were some very beautiful moments in the water. We were terrified, but the sky had never been clearer and we could see all the stars in the Milky Way. There was no light pollution,” Riggs said. “The water was glowing blue with the flourescent jelly fish.”
God taught him to swim?
Tides and/or currents ? Often you can't go in a straight line. Fives hours, wow, that's really something.
He could have. Are you questioning His powers?
True. I’m just thinking it doesn’t seem like many miles. Also not clear when he started swimming. Was the water still choppy from storms? Etc.
Amazing someone not practiced could manage this. The will to live is strong.
Another article stated that he clung to buoys to rest.
I just watched a video on YouTube about a 16 month old swimming baby. Future lifesaver!
Great story. I love a happy ending.
Deal is a residential community in south Anne Arundel Co not an island. The water is shallow close in and a chop can come up quickly. The current there depending on the tide runs southeast at between 2.5 to 4 knots. The guy was swimming against the current. He is very lucky to be alive. Also swarms of jellyfish? Not this summer too much rain jellyfish like higher salinity
I’ve always associated phosphorescence with sharks, not jellyfish. Great time to get attacked, swimming at night in that. They’re luckier than they know, imho.
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