It's not that I wouldn't do the same to save mine. Nor that you wouldn't. It's the fact that he actually pulled it off that makes it so amazing. Swimming five hours is not easy, but if you love your family as much as John Franklin Riggs clearly does, the swimming challenge is nothing compared with the thought of losing them. Fox News reports:
John Franklin Riggs climbed rocks along the shoreline in the dark and knocked on the door of the first house he saw after swimming three miles early Wednesday.
“He came to the right house,” said Angela Byrd, whose dog’s barking awakened her. She found 46-year-old Riggs outside, soaking wet and barefoot.
“He said, ‘I’ve been swimming since sundown; I need help,’” she told the Daily Times.
Byrd called 911 and rescuers were soon on their way to the 16-foot Carolina Skiff that capsized near Deal Island, southwest of Salisbury. Life jackets saved the boaters’ lives, Sgt. Brian Albert of the Maryland Natural Resources Police said.
"Just not knowing what's going on with them while I was gone. It was getting nasty and blowing harder. And not knowing if we would be able to find them when we got back out there," Riggs told WBOC.com.
Consider what must have gone through his mind the whole time. He couldn't have been sure just how long he would have to swim. He had no idea if the family was still holding on, if they were still together, if they were suffering from hypothermia . . . there are so many points of uncertainty. Once he made the decision to leave them and seek help, there was no guarantee he would ever see them again. Chew on that.
But when you're that determined, it's the determination that takes over and trumps everything else.
Riggs is undoubtedly a hero, but I'm sure he would agree that many others put in the same circumstances would make the same effort, so great is the inspiration of our commitment to our loved ones. But I don't know how many would have made it. I'd like to think I would. But I know he did, so all the praise he's getting, he deserves.
