Parents Talk: Kids (and Adults) Can Quickly Find Themselves in Trouble Around Water

I consider myself an excellent swimmer.

I grew up just a few miles from the ocean, and some of my earliest memories are of my mom—herself the owner of a strong backstroke—spending countless hours teaching me how to swim in our backyard pool.

As a teenager I was part of a swim team that went undefeated for three straight seasons, and I swam freestyle on a relay that for a time was one of New Jersey’s best amateur quartets.

I joined the United States Marine Corps out of high school and excelled in combat swimming and tactics—earning the highest certification available to a non-special forces enlistee.

Resume established, fast forward to the Fourth of July 2012.

My family was spending the holiday in Excelsior, and the three of us arrived at the Commons early to partake in the kid’s fishing contest and secure some prime real estate along the water.

While my wife took a post-lunch snooze under a tree, I took our five-year-old daughter to the public beach a short stroll away.

Our little one learned to swim last year and is a star at her summer camp. She easily dives down to the bottom of the 10-feet to snatch toys and is one of the few girls in her group to pass the “green” test—allowing her unlimited access to the diving board.

We dragged an inflatable tube along and headed for the unguarded part of the beach. Both sections were jammed with swimmers. Rafts and the like aren’t—for good reasons—permitted in the area patrolled by lifeguards.

It didn’t take long for my little girl with a missing front tooth to (intentionally) flip off her pink and purple tube in what was probably 15 feet of water. The wind snagged her doughnut and began carrying it toward Big Island.

I wasn’t more than five feet behind her, and I gave the command to “turtle.” She instantly threw her arms around my neck piggyback style and hung on. It was a position she’s familiar with and one we use often during swim lessons. It’s also the worst one for any sort of rescue operation.

It quickly became obvious that I wasn’t going to catch our tube with 50 pounds of kid on my back, and I let the $5 piece of plastic float away. It was probably the only smart decision I had made up to that point.

I looked around for the best path toward shore. Deciding to use the waves to propel us the 500 feet or so to the beach, we began heading back.

We got about halfway when I began to struggle. My arms got tired, my breathing quickened and the presence of aquatic plants tricked me into thinking the water wasn’t as deep as it actually was.

Before going any further, let me be clear: we were never in any real danger. Standing-depth water was well within reach, and at least a dozen swimmers would have been in easy range of us had I yelled for help.

We eventually made it to a raft—surprising a snoozing sunbather, but our journey hadn’t gone unnoticed. Two men had spotted me swimming and saw enough signs of distress that they began heading in our direction. Even though we reached the raft before they did, it was nice to know someone would have been there to help if we had needed it.

Still, I panicked and made all the wrong decisions. I shouldn’t have had my five-year-old out that far in an unguarded section of Lake Minnetonka, and I shouldn’t have had her arms squeezing my neck on the way back.

I should have respected the water more.