About five years ago I was on vacation on Emerald Island in NC and the rip tides were so bad that you weren’t allowed to swim in the ocean. All week long the beach patrol guys were going up and down the beach rescuing people who thought they could go in and got caught in the tide. After a few days of a beach vacation my wife and her sister and law and cousin got bored and decided to Wade out just a little bit on boogie boards. After a few minutes two of the three of them came back in but my wife’s cousin couldn’t get back in. She was obviously struggling but not in immediate danger because she had the boogie board, but her husband panicked and went in to try to get her. He got behind her and tried to start pushing her jn but after a minute or so of struggling it was obvious he was exhausted and going under. We had called the beach patrol but they hadn’t come yet. I grabbed two boogie boards and went in and was able to reach the two of them and give him one to keep him from going under. We should have just let the tide take us out and get rescued since we all had boards now but we tried to get back in. We managed to make it but holy shit it was the most exhausting experience of my life. We were all idiots that day and for super lucky, but it made me respect those warnings and I’ll never go near the water again in those circumstances.
We happen to be on vacation right now with those same cousins (in the Galapagos which is amazing btw) and saw this story which brought back some terrible memories, but also gratitude that we are able to travel with them again and we didn’t lose anyone that day.
Anyway, RIP Ryan. Way, way too young and terribly tragic. But it’s easy to me to imagine how this can happen.