80 Strangers Formed a Human Chain Into the Ocean to Save a Drowning Family

On Saturday, July 8, 2017, two brothers - Noah, 11, and Stephen, 8 - were swimming off Panama City Beach, Florida, near the M.B. Miller County Pier when a rip current pulled them away from shore. The lifeguards had already left for the day.

Brittany Monroe, 25, and her wife Tabatha, 35, visiting from Georgia, paddled out on boogie boards to help. The boys' mother, Roberta Ursrey, 34, swam out after them, and so did other members of her family, including her mother, Barbara Franz, 67. The current trapped them all. Within minutes, about nine people were stuck in the water, unable to reach shore (some accounts count ten).

"I'm going to die this way," Roberta remembers thinking.

The Ant Idea

On the beach, Derek Simmons, 26, and his wife Jessica, 29, from Hueytown, Alabama, had stopped for dinner when they saw people pointing at the water. Police on the scene were waiting for a rescue boat.

"The only thing that popped into my mind was if you've ever watched ants," Derek later told ABC News. "When one of their babies is in trouble and can't move, they start making a chain in order to pass them down the line to get them to safety."

He started getting the people around him to lock arms. One person grabbed on. Then another. Then another.

About 80 Strangers

The chain started with about five people, then fifteen, then dozens. Most accounts put it at about 80 strangers stretching as far as 100 yards into the Gulf of Mexico; the Simmonses later estimated close to 70, and a police report put it nearer 40. Some of the people in it could not swim. None of them knew the family.

Jessica, a strong swimmer, grabbed a discarded boogie board and paddled out past the end of the chain to the stranded group. "These people are not drowning today," she remembers telling herself. She and Derek towed the swimmers back to the chain, which passed them hand over hand to shore.

The rescue took nearly an hour and ended around sunset, with people on the beach cheering.

Everyone Survived

Everyone was pulled from the water alive. But it wasn't without cost. Barbara Franz, the boys' grandmother, suffered a major heart attack in the water and had to be shocked back to life. She spent time on a ventilator before her condition stabilized, and months later she was still dealing with the effects.

Roberta blacked out in the water and woke up on the beach. Her nephew broke his hand. Brittany Monroe was treated for water in her lungs.

"These people were God's angels that were in the right place at the right time," Roberta said.

On TODAY, eight-year-old Stephen said the rescue meant he would one day pay it forward: "Well since they helped me, when I grow up and if they can't swim, I'm gonna have to."

Days later, Congressman Neal Dunn took to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to honor the more than 80 beachgoers, calling it "a testament to the generosity of the human spirit."