Former NFL running back Peyton Hillis was hospitalized for more than two weeks after he saved his son and niece from drowning when they were caught in a rip current in Pensacola, Fla., in January. For the first time since the harrowing rescue, Hillis sat down for an interview and discussed what happened.
“It is 100% a miracle that somebody didn’t die,” he told Michael Strahan of Good Morning America. “It’s just amazing we weren’t burying somebody.”
Hillis, 37, recounts taking his family to the beach the day after a storm but that conditions looked completely normal with no flags warning of a dangerous current in sight. At some point, Hillis was alerted by his mother that the children were drowning and he immediately jumped in the water to get them with no lifeguards in the area.
