NEW: Brown Hockey Players Save Kids From Drowning; How It Happened
Friday, September 02, 2011
When six Brown University hockey players took a late-summer daytrip to Little Compton, they had no idea they'd end up at the center of a dramatic rescue of three teenage swimmers caught in a deadly rip current.
David Brownschidle, '11, former captain of the Brown squad as well as a former intern at GoLocalProv.com, spoke to GoLocal about the incident.
You and your friends were down at Little Compton and then something went wrong in the water. Describe from your point of view how it happened.
It was about 2:30 pm and we had just gotten to the beach. I had never been to South Shore in Little Compton before, but it was the beach (Brownschidle's teammate) Mike Borge went to all the time.
Right away we went into the water, where there were probably 10-15 people swimming. We had one boogie board, one surf board and one pair of flippers between the 5 other guys (Dennis Robertson, a 2011 Toronto Maple Leafs draft pick, Jeff Ryan, Mike Wolff, Bobby Farnham, and our buddy Mike Borge). Then we started to hear some girls yelling from about 30 yards to our right, but at first I couldn't tell what they were yelling or if they were just playing.
"He's caught!"
Simultaneously we realized that they were in trouble and all 6 of us sprinted off towards them. At first I just saw the 2 girls and then as I swam closer, I saw a man floating in the water about 10 yards deeper than the girls. Right away Wolff and Ryan got to the girls first and started helping them get to a nearby sandbar. Meanwhile, Farnham, Borge, Robertson and I swam to the boy who was really out of it. Originally I thought the kid was cut or bitten by something (maybe a shark), but afterwards I realized that the girls were yelling "He's caught, he's caught," not "He's cut."
When we got to him he was barely responsive. He was extremely pale and just floating in the water (some of the other guys thought he was maybe dead). We ended up getting him on top of the boogie board to get him afloat and out of the water. Roberston is a certified lifeguard and was doing an impressive job of talking to the kid to calm him down and keep him conscious.
Rip current
After maybe 5 minutes of trying to swim the kid in, I realized that we were not going anywhere. I started yelling to everyone to start swimming parallel to the shore because we must be stuck in a riptide or undertow. Then after that it probably took us another 10 minutes to swim the 30 yards parallel back to where the sandbar was. When they finally got the kid to shore he could barely barely walk so they had to basically carry him to his mother on shore. They ended up leaving soon afterwards, so we don't know if they ended up going to the hospital or not. The weird thing was that nobody on the beach really knew or saw what happened.
Had any of you ever rescued anyone ever before?
Not that I can really think of.
Who among you realized what was going on and advocated going in after them?
We all pretty much heard and realized at the same time, but Jeff Ryan and Mike Wolff were the first to get there.
What was it like afterward?
We were all kind of in shock. The situation got serious really, really fast. If all 6 of us weren't there with the boogie board, that situation could have turned really bad, for all of us. We needed everyone there to save the girls and the boy (ages 12-14) who were in a state of complete exhaustion (we're assuming that they must have been battling the riptide for a while). We were all completely exhausted as well from the rescue.
Have you yourself ever been involved in anything remotely like this?
I actually got stuck in a bad riptide, when I was in El Salvador on a private beach a few years ago. I was stuck out there for like 25 minutes (which felt like eternity). That time I was starting to panic, but I remembered that if you are ever stuck in a riptide to swim parallel to the shore, like my mom told me every time I went to the beach as a little kid, and it will take you in, rather than trying to swim straight in and wear yourself out. Because of that experience, I was able to stay much more calm this time.
Did you guys talk about it on the way back? If so, what kind of conversation was that? What did you say?
We just talked about how quickly it escalated and that how fortunate we were for all being there with the boogie board and surf board. If only 1 or 2 of us were there on our own, it would have been really really tough to save them all. It was also very lucky that we even heard the girls screaming because nobody else did.
Did you talk to friends about it when you got back to Providence? How did they respond?
Everyone thought it was pretty crazy. My family was very proud. My mom was thrilled that after all those times of her telling me to swim parallel that I was actually listening to her.
