Get The Hell Out of Your Life

Surviving the Waters: A Grandmother's Tale of Rescue and Faith

• Ron Meyers, Dee Hendricks • Season 5 • Episode 30

Share episode

Send us a text

What happens when a joyous family outing on the waters of Destin, Florida turns into a gripping struggle for survival? Hear the astonishing tale of a courageous grandmother who, during a jet skiing adventure with her granddaughters, faced a terrifying capsizing accident. Battling rough waters, jellyfish stings, and the relentless fight to stay afloat, our guest recounts her harrowing four-hour ordeal separated from her youngest granddaughter, Andy. Her story is a powerful testament to the enduring strength of love and faith, and a stark reminder of the importance of safety measures like brightly colored life vests.

In the second chapter, we spotlight the life-saving moments that followed the accident. Learn how Brooklyn's brave decision to seek help and a spark from a watch band led to a helicopter rescue, highlighting the crucial role of visibility in safety gear. We'll discuss the critical mission to change life vest colors to prevent future tragedies and underscore the importance of the Aqua Alert system in emergency situations. Finally, we turn our attention to the hope and rest found in the complete salvation through Jesus, inviting you to reflect on the assurance His finished work on the cross provides. Join us for an episode filled with heart-stopping moments, powerful lessons, and inspiring reflections.

  • If you would like to share your story, click this link: https://thepromoter.org/story/

Thanks for Listening, and subscribe to hear a new episode each week!

Announcer:

It's time now to get the hell out of your life. A weekly broadcast with real people sharing real struggles and offering real hope. Today's show will encourage, inspire and empower you to face life's challenges with a bold confidence and renewed hope. Now let's join our host, ron Myers. The promoter.

Speaker 2:

The last year, on August, the 11th of 2023, myself and two granddaughters went shopping for the day in Destin, florida, and my youngest granddaughter wanted to go jet skiing and she was getting ready to fly back to Missouri to go to restart school. So, of course, grandma thought, well, okay, it'll be fun. So I rented two jet skis, because the youngest one wasn't old enough to drive, so she was on the jet ski with me. And now I did not know this, but that day the conditions were not favorable. The Coast Guard told me later, after my ordeal, that the waves that day was eight and 10 feet high. So our fun afternoon ended up turning into a living nightmare.

Speaker 2:

We get on the two jet skis. My oldest granddaughter is, at the time, 19 years old. Brooklyn is a very conservative young lady. She does not take any chances. Andy that's my youngest, and she was on with me. She's a little daredevil. She likes to live life to the fullest.

Speaker 2:

And anyway, we head out and Andy sees all these people passing us, going full speed, and she wants to follow them. So we do, and Brooklyn stays inside the jetty. We get out into the gulf and I see how extremely dangerous and rough it is. It scares me to death and I didn't want to let Andy know that I was terrified and I just tell her to hang on for dear life and not to let go of Grandma no matter what happens. So I turn and go back toward the jetties and I just get up on full plane and I'm going as fast as I can. But when I get to the jetties I let off the throttle and come down into the water and the mistake I made was I wasn't number one far enough into the jetty and when I came off throttle I'm sideways and a wave hits us and rolls the jet ski over on its side, knocking us into the water. And it knocks me far enough away from the jet ski that I could never get back to the jet ski. Now Andy does, but I have the kill switch to the jet ski on my life vest, which means she could not restart the jet ski. She knows how to drive one because where we live at Lake of the Ozarks is the biggest man-made lake in the United States. So she has drove a jet ski before and the next thing I know is a wave hits her again and she is back in the water. And that's the last time I see her, because then we are separated and I never see her again and I'm thinking that I'm going to hit the rocks in the jetty. But I'll be okay, because I'm going to be hurt when I hit them rocks, but at least I'm not going out into the open ocean, which my mistake was.

Speaker 2:

I did go out into the open ocean Some way. I got through that opening and when I did it just took me right out into the gulf. But God answered my prayer, because I just started praying and praying that Andy would be found immediately, because when we were standing up there after we rented the jet skis, they told us grab a life jacket. Andy grabbed a life jacket that was way too big for her, soaked and wet, wet. She weighs 95 pounds. She grabbed a 2x life jacket. Her sister and I caught it. We went back and started looking and the smallest life jacket we could find to fit her was a 1x. I never dreamed that day that any of this would ever happen and and I allowed her to put that on. And then Brooklyn and I cinched that life jacket down.

Speaker 3:

Now, who had that, who had the? Who had the oversized life jacket? The grant your granddaughter, the one that was with you.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

So she's floating out there on an oversized life jacket, but you, you don't see her, so you hope and pray that somebody picked her up right.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and I hope and pray that she never raises her hands above her head because she would slip out of that life jacket.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, she would slip out. So you're floating out there in the open ocean with a life vest. How long are you floating out there?

Speaker 2:

For over four hours.

Speaker 3:

You're praying, I'm sure.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I pray, oh, I pray, I pray for her and I pray for myself. I'm stung over seven times by jellyfish. The first two times I had no idea what was going on because I'd never, I've never seen a jellyfish, so I had no clue. But then I started seeing them, so I knew them, what was going on, and I just pray and pray that Andy's found, because she's so young and her whole life is ahead of her. So that's the love of a grandmother.

Speaker 3:

You're thinking of her and not even of yourself. That's just the love of a grandmother. That's so awesome, but you've got to get back to yourself. Are you thinking, dee, that this could be the end? I may not survive this.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I actually give up and I go to. How is my brother going to tell my 80-year-old mother that I died in the ocean and my body was never recovered? And then I start thinking I can't give up because if I give up and I die out here, my granddaughters are going to lose the love of the ocean and they're never going to want to come back to the ocean. I think it was halfway through my ordeal and the whole entire time I call the waves the monster because I never, ever get a break and I didn't realize this at the time. But my life jacket was rated as a onshore life jacket, which means it was close to the shoreline, but it was rated for a jet ski.

Speaker 2:

But here I'm in open water, rough water. So my life jacket, it gets so saturated that it loses its ability to tell which direction is up when I'm being took under the water and it's black down there and I'm going eight to 10 feet down into the ocean and I am fighting with all my might to get back to the surface and once I reach the surface I have another wave waiting for me to take me right back down. I never get a chance to breathe down. I never get a chance to breathe and I go through this for four hours constantly never having a break.

Speaker 3:

So what happened that? What saved you About?

Speaker 2:

halfway through I have a miracle happen, but at the time as it's happening, I don't realize it's a miracle until it's done. But what happens is I get something that bumps me from the bottom or my back end and the first thing I think of is the movie Jaws. And I asked God. I said, please don't show me what this is. And I just, I hold my breath, I just, I don't move a muscle. And this thing is bigger than me. It's above my head and below my feet and I'm about 5'5". And the next thing that happens is this thing comes and it raises me up out of the water for 15 to 20 seconds, wow. And then it lures me back and it's gone. But I have a chance to rest and to breathe, and that's God. That was God helping me. And then I go right back to fighting.

Speaker 3:

Wow.

Speaker 2:

And fighting. What I call the monster was the waves, and I accept the fact, down the road of ways, that I'm going to die today. I never got to tell my husband, my grandkids, how much I loved them, my son, any of that, and now you have to. One thing I didn't mention was my oldest granddaughter, brooklyn. She had to make the choice to leave her little sister in the ocean by herself and go back for help, because we were told later that if she had not went back and told them what had happened, they would not have looked for us until they closed that night.

Speaker 2:

Wow and this happened about four o'clock and they close at eight o'clock. And when she dialed 911, it's set, it's called Aqua Alert and a family from Minnesota lost Judy lost her husband in February of 2021. He went kayaking in a blue kayak and a black life jacket and never returned and they have never recovered his body. And they went to Congress and passed it's called Aqua Alert, which is the same thing as an Amber Alert, and as soon as 911 was dialed, that went into effect, which over 200 people in Destin had signed up for this. It dinged their phone and gave them the information and they went out looking for me and Andy Wow.

Speaker 2:

And four helicopters also went looking, and so, therefore, if Brooklyn had not left Andy, there would have been no Aqua Alert. Right, and I actually was fortunate enough to meet the family, Judy and her son Dan, that set all that in motion this May at a conference in Clearwater. So I have a new family and I can never repay them for what they done.

Speaker 3:

You told me that the helicopters went over you, but then they saw something sparkle, another miracle. What was that?

Speaker 2:

I had my watch on and it was just an old fashioned watch $10 watch from Walmart that had the silver and gold band on it, and everything was put into place by God. I come up out of the water and my arm was high enough out of the water that the sun hit my watch band and the sparkle of my watch band hit the pilot in the eye, him noticing it, and then he come down and started circling until I resurfaced and he seen me and he circled me until boats got out to me. He never left, even though I was going up and down into the water. He stayed with me the whole entire time and it took him about 45 minutes to get out there because of how far I was, three and a half miles out in the Gulf, headed toward Cuba. If you're, if, if you don't believe in God, I can tell you there is a God because I was gave a second chance. God, I am a miracle to be alive.

Speaker 3:

Well and D? This is the important part now that even is so awesome, what God had planned. You were in a black. You said it was a black life vest.

Speaker 2:

A blue one.

Speaker 3:

A blue one.

Speaker 2:

And you cannot be seen in blue because you blend right in. So I campaign against blue life jackets. Even in a swimming pool, in a lazy river, you blend in, you cannot be seen, you are overlooked.

Speaker 3:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And they are very, very dangerous.

Speaker 3:

So God wants you to stay in Gulf Shores for a little while. You have an assignment now. You are on a mission to begin changing a life vest that they have to be orange. Tell the listeners your mission, your assignment.

Speaker 2:

I am, um. I have rented a house here in Gulf Shores, alabama. I am going to travel and I'm going to campaign to get blue life jackets took off the market, uh, to have orange, red, yellow to replace, because too many lives can be lost. I actually, in May, found out where a little boy drowned at Disney World in Lazy River because he had a blue life jacket. Lazy River was painted blue on the inside. They used blue inner tubes and he got separated from his parents. His life jacket turned him face down and then tubes got on top of him and by the time that they realized what was going on, he was, he was submerged and they could not resuscitate him. So my goal is to change all that, and as many people as I can tell they're going to tell somebody else and we're going to get the word out together. And that's what I believe, that's what God left me here for was to spread the word and with his help, I'm doing that.

Speaker 3:

Indeed, yes, I mean, I'm down. It's Mother's Day weekend, we're done at Arts and Crafts show, we go to Lulu's to eat. I go in the gift shop. I don't really seize anything I want, but something tells me to go back in the gift shop and then I just being to get a conversation with you, and one thing leads to another. It is amazing how God will orchestrate things in each of our lives and to to get our attention. And he's got all of our attention, and now you're on an awesome purpose. I just love this story, dee, and I'm going to get the Facebook page and how people can get in touch with you to help you. But before we go, there's a couple of things I want to do. Would you just talk to someone right now that maybe they need some hope? Maybe they lost a loved one by a drowning. They just need some comfort and could lost a loved one by a drowning. They just need some comfort, and could you speak to that person?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I understand what it feels like because myself I physically drowned that day. The pain of losing that person I can relate to and. But no, god is with you and he is going to help you if you will. Let him Give your life to him and he will help you.

Speaker 3:

Amen. How do people find out about your mission or to get in touch with you?

Speaker 2:

My email is this is all lowercase is makingwavesmyatyahoocom.

Speaker 3:

Making waves what.

Speaker 2:

Makingwavesmyyahoocom, all lowercase. I like that I would like to say one short thing to Ron. If there is any church member out there that can hear me, and if they would like to have me come and do a testimony, if you will send me a message, a request on my email, I would be more than happy to come to your church and do a testimony.

Speaker 3:

Amen. Now will you close out our conversation and pray for our listeners.

Speaker 2:

I will, I'd be more than happy to. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity of showing the love of you and the knowing that you are with me and every person out there. Thank you for the joy and the sunshine that you bring us, and thank you for Ron, for what he does, and all of the people, the military, everyone that shows love for us. In your name, I pray Amen.

Announcer:

You're listening to Get the Hell Out of your Life with your host, ron Myers. Real stories, real struggles and real hope.

Speaker 4:

Here's a refreshing word from James, chapter 1, verse 5. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who?

Speaker 5:

gives generously to all, without finding fault, and it will be given to him. What's your story? We're looking for stories of hope and overcoming life's struggles with God's grace. Your story validates God's love, mercy, restoration and forgiveness. We want to help you share your story with the world. Visit our website, thepromoterorg, and click on the Share your Story link and submit your story. Your testimony of God's amazing grace will change a person's destiny for eternity.

Announcer:

Getting encouragement is important and it helps us overcome our fears and gives us the courage to face life's challenges. To receive weekly messages of encouragement, all you need to do is text INSPIRE to 888-527-1223. That's 888-527-1223. Our messages are intended to inspire and empower you on your life journey. Remember, life is more enjoyable when you're inspired Life around. If you want to start living right, get the hell out of your life, get the hell out of your life.

Speaker 3:

Here is a word for you for 2021. God wants you to know that he loves you and he has a plan for you. And in 2021, you need to know this that you have got to depend on God 24-7. You cannot trust what the world will tell you. And in 2021, you need to know this that you have got to depend on God 24-7. You cannot trust what the world will tell you. They will tell you a little bit of truth and a lot of lies. You must hold on to God as if your life depends on it, because it does.

Speaker 3:

You must think about God in the morning when you wake up, and in the evening before you go to bed, your prayer life. Well, it has got to be so in tune with God that you will hear pin drops in heaven. You have been chosen for this time and sometimes, friend, it will look like the world is going to fall apart, but that light inside of you will become so bright it will scatter the darkness in your house and in your neighborhood and in your business. Greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world. You cannot look to the left, you cannot look to the right. You have got to look right to God for the answers. You must pray and you pray and you do not focus on the news of the world. You need to be developing more quiet time between you and God. You need to know what God wants you to know so he can position you, so he can place the people in your path that you will recognize as an ambassador from God.

Speaker 3:

This is your time to rise above every circumstance in your life. This is your time to throw those shoulders back and declare I have not been given a spirit of fear, but of power, love and sound mind. This is your time to say no more backing down, no more making excuses, no more listening to the naysayers. This is your time to become everything that God created you to become. When you become you, you will defeat the enemies, you will open the doors of opportunity, your children will be blessed, your family will be blessed and everything you touched will be blessed, because you will have God's favor.

Speaker 3:

But it comes with a price. You will be mocked, you will be ridiculed, you'll be laughed at. But who cares? Because when God is on your side, you are on the winning side. God cannot fail. God does not lose, god will always win. So, in 2021, god needs you to know, without a doubt, you have been chosen for this time. You've been chosen to hear this message because God is something great for you. Don't lose your faith, stand strong, be strong and declare today that I'm a child of God with a plan, with a mighty purpose.

Announcer:

You're listening to Get the Hell Out of your Life with your host, ron Myers. Real stories, real struggles and real hope.

Speaker 4:

Real struggles and real hope. Ron will be back in a minute to close out today's show. We want to remind you today of the last words of Jesus it is finished. What is finished, the finished work of Jesus, refers to the complete and final accomplishment of salvation through his death and resurrection. It means that Jesus has done everything necessary for our forgiveness, redemption and reconciliation with God. Through His sacrifice on the cross, jesus paid the price for our sins once and for all, providing total forgiveness and cleansing. This finished work of Jesus means that we no longer need to strive or work to earn God's favor or forgiveness. We can rest in the assurance that our salvation is secure and that we are fully. No-transcript.

Announcer:

We invite you to come shop with over 255 vendors from all over the United States from November 8th through the 10th inside the Coast Convention Center, located on the beach in Biloxi, mississippi. You can find more information at christmascitygiftshowcom. Thanks for listening, and if you would like to share your story of what God has done in your life or listen to previous episodes, please visit our website, thepromoterorg. Join us next week for another episode of Get the Hell Out of your.