Philip Robert

There was a shriek of panic on the Comal river. The kind of sound that silences everything else, and makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.

It was Sunday afternoon. I was swimming on the river with my cousin Michael Lebeau. We were at a place called "the tube chute," an S shaped concrete chute that goes around "stinky falls." It's a fun little rapid. If you swim it you'll get tumbled about a bit. A little scary if you're a good swimmer, and a lot scary if you're not. Most people come through on tubes and never realize how turbulent the water below really is.

Michael and I were on the opposite bank watching all the tubers come through. He was standing on a ledge in the water catching the odd loose flip flop or hat, and I was sitting up on bank when all of a sudden that blood curdling shriek of panic pierced the afternoon air.

A girl had flipped over, and she was caught in the eddy next to the river wall about forty feet away from me. Deep water there with nothing to grab. In two blinks I was on my stomach on the wall, taking hold of her by the wrist. Just a few feet away another woman had been calling to the girl that the water got shallower just down the wall so I began to moving in that direction. A moment later the same woman came over and helped me pull the girl onto the sidewalk.

She was really shaken up. Instead of relaxing in the current, she was trying to fight it, and ended up in a panic. She said the panic came because she couldn't touch bottom, and didn't know where the shallow water was.

A few minutes later her boyfriend showed up, and I was sure she'd be all right. The adrenaline was shaking me a little bit, and my heart was pounding. Thank you God that my father taught me to be a strong swimmer. Thank God for the Red Cross Lifesaving courses that he sent me to that taught me how to safely pull someone out.