St John, Day 1

For Thanksgiving, we are spending the week in St. John with family.

We arrived last night, and today was our first day on the beach.  

My poor, deprived kids have never seen the ocean, so today was a pretty big event.

We arrived at Trunk Bay, and found a nice spot.

As we were getting everyone covered in sunscreen, we noticed a gentleman floating in the ocean face down.  He was wearing snorkel gear, so it looked like he could have just been snorkeling. 

It soon became apparent that he was not.

Some other swimmers pulled him out of the water, and others went to flag down the lifeguards.

CPR was started, and he was worked on continuously until the paramedics arrived.

I wish I could say that we saw him come back to life, but we did not.

The were still working on him while they loaded him into the ambulance, so perhaps they were able to revive him later.

Of course, our kids saw the whole thing and were very upset. 

Ciara burst into tears and refused to get near the water.

She wouldn't even play in the sand until they took him away in the ambulance.

Caden was less traumatized, but it took him a while to get in the water.  

Things eventually calmed down, and they did get to enjoy the beach.

But I don't think any of us will forget today.

I still don't know what the outcome was for the gentleman.

And I don't know that we will ever know, but I hope he felt the prayers of my family, and probably many others on the beach.