Saved by the man in the beard
When I was a young boy, back in the early 1970s, my parents took the family tubing on the Apple River. If you do a search or click on the link, you will see that this is still done today. I knew how to swim, as my father taught us all to swim as soon as we started to walk. He was a life guard in high school and college, so it was something he was very proud of doing.
The tubing trip for the most part was long and uneventful. Even though I was only 4 years old, I remember lots of people leisurely rafting on a calm river. There were young and old either relaxing or having fun. Some people had brought coolers with them, that were either floating on rafts by themselves or held by an occupant. Just a relaxing day on the river during the summer.
At the end of the tubing trip, there were ropes for people to grab and pull themselves out of the river. The reason was, there was a damn and waterfall after the pullout site. With six kids in tow, my parents had to make sure everyone got out of the river okay. Well, since everyone had to get out of the river at that point, there was a large crowd and my parents did not grab me.
The story goes, because I don't remember this part, is that I started drifting past the get out point and down to the dam. I surely would have gone over the dam, but a young man with a beard, reached down and plucked me from the water. I was sent back to be with my parents and the man either disappeared into the crowd or was just gone, so my parents couldn't thank him.
I like to say, if people ask me "Has Jesus saved you?"; Yes, he plucked me from the water and saved me from a waterfall when I was a child.
Awesome ending! Great story. Especially, the "angel" aspect of it, which I referred to in a comment today, I think a reply to someone else's story on this post. Yeah, about running away. I had an "angel" in dog form when I was a teenager, one night.
After talking about it with my sister, apparently the event was even more scary than I remembered. It affected her more than me, because she doesn't like to go swimming where she can't touch the bottom.