Safety Tidbits: 7-7

Life line

World War II veteran, Donald Vairin, shared his story of serving as a hospital corpsman in the invasion of Guam. While navigating some dangerous waters, the boat he was on hit a coral reef and came to a sudden halt. The commanding officer, realizing the ship was sinking, ordered everyone off at once.

Donald jumped into the water and sank like a rock, with his rifle, medic pack, canteen pulling him down. He forced himself to the surface, gasping for air, only to sink again. He tried to pull off his boots, but the effort exhausted him, and he began to sense he wasn’t going to make it.

Just then he saw a man thrashing in the water next to him, and in desperation he clutched onto him. That proved enough to hold him up and get him to the reef where he was picked up by a rescue boat. But Donald felt so guilty about grabbing the drowning man to save himself that he never told anyone what had happened.

On shore leave, about six months later he stopped into a restaurant where a sailor in uniform waved him over.  When he approached, the sailor announced to his friends, “This is my buddy. He saved my life.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Donald.

“Don’t you remember?” asked the sailor. “We were in the water together at Guam. You grabbed on to me. I was going down and you held me up.”

Source: Real Stories for the Soul

We’re all here for a purpose and we need to help each other out when we can. Sometimes as we struggle to help ourselves we are helping others, too, without even realizing it – and that’s a good thing.  We all need a life line at some point.

Be thankful for your allotment in an imperfect world.  Though better circumstances can be imagined, far worse are nearer misses than you probably care to realize. ―Richelle E. Goodrich

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Thanks for the share, WK!