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

On Saturday, July 8, 2017, around 6:30 p.m., two brothers - Noah, 11, and Stephen, 8 - were swimming off Panama City Beach, Florida, near M.B. Miller County Pier when they were pulled into a powerful riptide. The lifeguards had already left for the day.

Brittany Monroe, 25, and Tabatha Monroe, 35, a couple visiting from Georgia, spotted the boys in trouble. They grabbed them on their boogie boards and tried to swim them in, but the current pulled all four of them further out. Their mother Roberta Ursrey, 34, swam out after them. Then her husband Bryan. Then her mother Barbara Franz, 67. Then a nephew. Within minutes, nine people were trapped in the current, unable to reach shore.

"I'm going to die this way," Roberta said. "My family is going to die this way."

The Ant Idea

On the beach, Derek Simmons, 26, from Hueytown, Alabama, watched the disaster unfold. Police officers were warning people to stay out of the water. Derek ignored them.

"The only thing that popped into my mind was if you've ever watched ants," he 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 shouting at the strangers around him. "Grab arms! Grab wrists!" One person grabbed on. Then another. Then another.

80 Strangers

The chain started with five people. Then fifteen. Within minutes, roughly 80 complete strangers had locked arms in a human chain stretching about 100 yards into the Gulf of Mexico. Some were chest-deep. Some were neck-deep. None of them knew each other. Police had told them not to go in. They went in anyway.

Derek's wife Jessica, 29, didn't join the chain. She grabbed a boogie board and swam directly out to the stranded group. "These people are not drowning today," she said. "It's not happening. We are going to get them out." She ferried each person back to the chain one at a time.

The chain held for over an hour as the exhausted swimmers were passed hand over hand back to shore. The current fought them the entire time.

Everyone Survived

All nine people were pulled from the water alive. But it wasn't without cost. Barbara Franz, the boys' grandmother, suffered a massive heart attack during the rescue. Paramedics had to shock her heart back into rhythm. She was placed on a ventilator at Bay Medical Center but was later upgraded to stable condition and made a full recovery.

Roberta lost consciousness in the water and had no memory of the rescue itself. Her nephew broke his hand. Brittany Monroe was treated for water in her lungs.

The family and their rescuers later reunited on Good Morning America. Roberta hugged the strangers who had saved her family. "Ya'll were my angels that day," she said. Noah and Stephen sent a recorded message: "Thank you for showing so much courage. You are our heroes."

When reporters asked eight-year-old Stephen what he wanted to do when he grew up, he said: "Well since they helped me, when I grow up and if they can't swim, I'm gonna have to rescue them."

Congressman Neal Dunn took to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to honour the rescuers, calling it "a testament to the generosity of the human spirit."

Derek Simmons put it simpler: "All different nationalities, people that don't speak the same language. It didn't matter."