x
Breaking News
More () »

Atlanta man thanks strangers who saved him from rip current, warns others

While standing on a sandbar in waist-deep water, an Atlanta doctor said the bottom just dropped out and a rip current sucked him out to sea.

An Atlanta man is thanking two strangers who risked their lives to save him from a rip current in the rough sea along the Florida Gulf Coast.

On Friday, Atlanta chiropractor Dr. Patrick Sallarulo was on vacation with his wife in Seacrest, Florida, on the Gulf Coast. He waded into the surf, and was standing by himself on a sandbar in waist deep water.

“I mean, I figured okay, I’m on a sandbar, I’ll be safe, you know, it’s only waist deep, but it happened just like that,” Sallarulo said, snapping his fingers.

He said the bottom just dropped out and a rip current sucked him out to sea.

His collarbone broke, so he was having trouble treading water to keep from going under.

Sallarulo said a prayer and thought only of his wife and two grown daughters.

“I started to say I don’t think I’m gonna make it,” he said.

Just then, two men he’d never met appeared out of nowhere.

“Suddenly I heard two guys, calling to me, say, stay calm, we’re on our way out.”

Dr. Sallarulo is grateful to his rescuers, Tom Slattery and Kevin LaGraize, of New Orleans. He also is grateful to a lifeguard who reached all three of them with a flotation device, to help everyone get to shore. But he said he is embarrassed for nearly losing his life and for putting their lives at risk.

Because it was a red flag day at the beach, lifeguards were warning people to stay out of the water and away from the life-threatening rip currents.

The South Walton Fire District, in Walton County, Florida, tries all year long to convince people to heed the red flags.

Just last week alone, the South Walton Fire District performed 226 public assists, rescuing swimmers in trouble. Twenty-two of those assists were EMS dispatched rescues of people who were at immediate risk of drowning.

Out of all the rescues, last week and all year, according to Beach Safety Director David Vaughan, 75 to 80 percent of them are people having to be rescued from rip currents.

Lifeguards can spot rip currents, which are a flow of water moving so fast--out and away from shore--the flow, the current, rips through the breakers.

Swimmers are supposed to be able to move out of the rip currents by swimming parallel to the shoreline, but in Sallarulo’s case, his collarbone broken from the rip current, he was trying just to float on his back in the rough surf and not swallow too much water; he couldn't swim to safety.

His daughters, he said, are lecturing him now for not heeding the red flag warnings, as he had taught them to do.

“I haven’t been the same, since, I’ll tell you that. And I pray that no one ever experiences that, because it’s the most frightening thing that you feel so helpless,” he said. “They risked their lives for me and I’ll never forget it.”

Sallarulo said to all the families planning a beach trip this summer, "a red flag day means it’s a pool day" for the kids and everyone else, no argument, no discussion. He’s telling his story now, he said, to try to save someone else.

Before You Leave, Check This Out