Help! I'm drowning and I Can't Get Up

Even though I lived my whole life very close to water, I have never been totally comfortable in it. For me, water is scary. I can swim, but even so I feel very insecure in water with waves or water I can't touch the bottom.

The other day I came much too close to drowning.

Here is my story...

At the swimming hole me, Toby, Summer and Bo were all out on a rock that sat in the middle of the hole. To get to the rock you had to swim from the shore across a few yards of deep section.

After a while, I decided to take Bo back with me back to the shore so Toby and Summer could splash around without having to keep an eye on Bo.

I grabbed the rope we had tied to his collar to give him more distance to swim and took off to shore with him paddling beside me. For reasons I don't know, he decided that he would hitch a ride back to the shore on my back.

When he jumped on my back he immediately took me under. I wasn't expecting him to do that so it took me by surprise and I took in some water. He's 70lbs of muscle and I'm not really that big of a gal so he had me pretty far under while he clung to my back.

While still submerged with him on top of me I reached up and tried to push him off my back. Because I was deep I had nothing to firm my stand so I could push him off. Every time I tried to push him off a little he would immediately grab back onto my back. All the while, I am still submerged.

Not being a swimmer I was running quickly out of breath while I was being held under. I tried one more time to push him off of me and he immediately clung back on to my back.

It's at this point that the fear and panic ran through me. I couldn't get him off of me. This is also the point where I knew I couldn't hold my breath any longer. I started to intake water in my mouth as I opened to gasp for air.

My biggest thought was that Toby and Summer were playing and weren't realizing that I was drowning and there was no way for me to alert them. I was scared. I started to realize that this is how I was going to exit my existence here on this plane.

At the exact moment that I was about to relax and let it be (because I could no longer hold my breath) I felt the dog being pulled off of me. I immediately came to the surface coughing and crying in relief. I choked and sputtered and my chest was burning. I had never been so grateful to see Toby. He has always taken good care of me and that day was no different for him.

The next thing I saw was Summer standing only a few feet away laughing. She was oblivous to what was going on. She thought it was funny the dog was riding my back on the way to shore. In her child-like innocent mind she saw no danger. She saw the dog riding my back like she does in the pool.

Luckily, Toby was smart enough to figure out that I was not having fun and came to my rescue. It took him a few minutes to pull the dog off of me because he had to find a shallow enough place to get standing so he could pull him off of me with the rope on his collar.

I don't know how long this whole scenario was, but for me it felt like a very long time.

It got me to thinking about how easy and quick it is for someone to drown and nobody notice until it's too late.

How ironic that this article was sent in my e-mail the night of my experience. I think it important information that needs to be shared.