Near Drowning

Lucy and Matilda swam for more than one hour joyfully, fearlessly off the slimy boat ramp in their shiny orange water wings. After eating they went across from our good campsite to the swinging horses. I heard the squeaky creak of those two horses for most of the time, as 2-year-old Roger napped under the small trees on my blanket in the shade. I read Daphne DuMaurier's “The Birds.” It is so much more absorbing, suspenseful and better constructed than Hitchcock's vehicle for Tippy Hedren. And I was a little tired myself. I dozed until the equestrian creaking stopped. Peering through my sweat-slicked specs, I saw orange-armed creatures racing and shrieking round the sliding board. I relaxed again.
My new friend Paula brought her young daughter Nicole back to camp. I suggested a swim, but Paula had no water wings; and anyway Nicole wanted to slide and swing with “the girls.” She left to join my daughters in the playground. Roger, awake, allowed Paula to hold him and giving him apple juice. Matilda came from the playground and asked to swim. I kept one eye on her from my shady vantage fifty feet away. The more gregarious Lucy continued to play with her new friend Nicole for a little. Then Lucy, too, came back to me, wings attached, and asked to “snoove” through the cool water. Nicole finally tired of her solitary play, and when she came to Paula, Roger and me on our blankets, I had my bright idea. Each of my girls could loan Nicole one of her water wings. Matilda was first persuaded, then Lucy reiterated her firmly held (but foundation-less, 4-year-old) belief that she could swim without any wings.
Since I had removed one of hers, I was quickly able to remove the other and put it on Matilda's bare arm. Meanwhile Lucy was silently, slowly, walking down the slick, slippery boat ramp toward the water. I was dubious about Lucy's intention, but I did want to offer Nicole the water wings. The poor little girl had spent the best part of the day riding around, and hadn't gotten to swim yet. She was already in the her suit. Paula was thanking me for the wings when I looked down the ramp to see if Lucy was in the water. She was.
Lucy was at the end of the ramp in about two feet of water, near the iron pipe on which the “Caution Deep Drop Off End of Ramp” sign was posted. Only her head was above water. I became anxious. As I watched, her head disappeared. So silently. Hardly a ripple. Then she was gone.
My brain, my body, time itself slowed down horribly. There was far too much time between Lucy's disappearance and my rush of fear-spurred energy which brought me to my feet. I was running fast. I called Lucy's name once. I had too much time to think as I ran. I thought of falling. I met the water and rushed, wading to my knees. I dove.
Where was Lucy? I went below again, eyes open, seeing nothing. The greenish-brown water became quickly opaque, long before I felt the stony bottom. Lucy was down there. I hadn't found her. I raised my head. I saw the three people on the boat dock not ten feet away. They watched me silently. Lucy was gone. Someone, (Paula?) on the ramp, said “Are you sure she's in the water?”
Was I sure? I had seen her head go down. Silently. With hardly a ripple. I had dived. I dove again. I couldn't find her. I bawled at Matilda to look in the tent. Yes, I did. I dove, I scraped the bottom at the base of the ramp with my hands. Every second Lucy was drowning. Matilda, of course, found no Lucy in the tent. I was trying to remember the exact spot Lucy disappeared. I dove, I called. Paula returned from her fruitless search of the playground. I dove. As panic welled up into desperation, I shoved it down. No time.
A stocky, hairy, mustached man was standing at the water's edge removing his shoes. He dove. He was far too deep. She must be near the end of the ramp. She must be found. Every second, every huge crawling minute, every blinded, empty-handed dive, Lucy was drowning down there, inches from me. Alone. The man was dividing near me. We went below the dank green wall and groped inches.
My head above water, I heard his “whoops.” I turned thinking incredibly, is this your idea of a joke? As his body jack-knifed down. He rose not three feet from me, not four inches from me, with Lucy. She was limp, white, eyes, horribly staring, drowned.
“She's blue,” I said loudly, firmly. “What do we do?” I asked him.
“Artificial resuscitation,” he said.
“Can you do it?”
“Yes. Hold her.”
There in the water, as we waded to shore, I held her head, he her body, and he blew into her mouth.
Miles from us, six or eight feet up the ramp, a woman wailed, “Do you know CPR?”
“No,” I answered her carefully. “Do you?”
“I've forgotten,” she shrieked, ululating her hysterical failure.
As we waded in, I shouted, “Paula! Go to registration. If someone is there, get help.” She went.
The angelic rescuer continued to blow into Lucy's mouth. She was not so blue. Then she vomited. He handed her to me, spitting out the vomit. I turned her head, clearing her mouth of the vomit. I laid her on the dry concrete. Lucy was moaning. She was breathing a gruesome bassoon note. She was breathing. She was alive! I did shout it.
Before he left us, I asked his name. He didn't want to give it, but I insisted. “George.”