For the first time since the incident, former New York Giants running back Peyton Hillis, speaking with Michael Strahan on Good Morning America, recounted the terrifying moments a riptide swept his son and niece out to sea.
EXCLUSIVE: "It is 100% a miracle that somebody didn't die.”
Former NFL running back @thepeytonhillis recounts saving his son and niece from a rip current while swimming at a Florida beach earlier this year to @michaelstrahan. https://t.co/pLuI3UJRiO pic.twitter.com/9RGABST2EP
— Good Morning America (@GMA) June 13, 2023
“The night before it was a bad storm, but you know, I didn’t really pay too much attention to it and when I woke up the next morning it was windy but it was beautiful,” Hillis recalled.
It was just a normal day until, in an instant, it wasn’t.
The family was relaxing at Pensacola Beach and the kids were playing in the surf. Suddenly, Hillis’ son and his niece were waving their arms and screaming. Despite no riptide flags up for nearly a mile, the undercurrent pulled the two out in the blink of an eye.
Without hesitation, Hillis dove in.
Once Hillis reached his son, he realized that he had to pass him by. Although his son was struggling, his niece was even further out and Hillis knew if he didn’t get to her that a grim ending was guaranteed.
“I think the scariest point … was when I’m swimming to my son and I have to pass by him because my niece is in more danger,” Hillis told Strahan. “I knew that I had to pass him up to get to Camille first. Because, you know, if I didn’t then there’s no way she would’ve made it.”
Hillis managed to reach Camille and was able to put her on a boogey board supplied by another beachgoer. That’s when he turned back to his son.
Exhausted, Hillis managed to reach his son who he said had gone limp after fighting the current. His eyes began rolling back into his head and just as Hillis managed to get footing through 12-foot waves, he lost consciousness. His lungs and kidneys began to shut down.
Following resuscitation efforts, Hillis was airlifted to a local hospital where he was put on a ventilator in the intensive care unit. He was unconscious for 10 days before finally being able to open his eyes again. He was eventually removed from the ventilator and discharged.
It was a miracle that Hillis lived and both children survived.
“I don’t think my lungs will ever get back to where they needed to be,” he said. “Physically, it’s comin’ along okay. Mentally things [are] coming along a lot slower. I’m just tryin’ to take it one day at a time.”
Hillis refuses to call himself a hero. Rather, he says, he’s just a Dad who did what anyone else would have done whether the children were their own or not.
That sure sounds like a hero.
