The following is a former winner of the Amazing but Incredibly True Story Contest.
Copyright Muse Enterprises for the author, 1998
Eight years ago a girlfriend and I went to visit her father in Cleveland (we live in Cincinnati, Ohio). He was very adament about us coming to see him and we didn't understand why at first. Two weeks after our visit her father died in his sleep. We figured that he had known this was going to happen at some level, and that was why he wanted to see her. Throughout the time we were in Cleveland visiting him he constantly told her that if she ever needed him to call and he would be there quicker than she could even think of it. We just assumed that he was missing his little girl and wanted to let me know that if I were to mistreat her, I would hear from him.
I was going to visit my family in Kentucky about a month after his death. As I was preparing for my weekend trip to Kentucky, my girlfriend kept saying she didn't want me to go. Finally, exhausted from trying to keep me from going, she said that she was going to go with me. The weekend was great. My family is really a lot of fun to be around.
In Cincinnati we have this park that sits on the river called The Serpentine Wall. It has a wall of squiggly steps kind of like a serpent. Well, we stopped by this park when we came home that Sunday evening. There is a small decline that you have to park on when you are entering the parking lot. We were looking at the stars and as I was turning my car to park but it wouldn't turn. I slammed on the brakes and nothing was happening. I looked at Carol and I told her to jump and opened my door.
By this time we were already airborne. It seemed like the car filled with water almost immediatley. My instinct was to swim to shore and I wasn't even thinking about Carol at that point, only myself. Then I heard her scream. I turned around and swam toward the back of the car lights as fast as I could. I couldn't see under water but I felt her chest and knew that I was by her window. I reached in and unlatched the seatbelt. I was running out of breath and was scared that if I swam up to the top I would never make it back to her again. So I kept on going. I finally got her loose but I couldn't hold my breath any longer and couldn't see where to go. I felt the car pulling my leg with it so I pushed her in the opposite direction and exhaled. Basically, I gave up.
The next thing I remember was being very cold and feeling heat from behind me. It was Carol holding me trying to keep me warm. I asked her what had happened and she said she would tell me later. The next afternoon she came to visit me in the hospital. I was the worst out of the two for I had water in my lungs. I asked her to tell me what happened. I wanted to know how she was able to save me because I thought she had already drowned. There had been no life in her body when I had felt her.
She said she was crying and screaming for God and the last thing she thought before she held her breath for the last time was if she could call on her daddy she would at that very moment. She said that that was all she thought about. She remembers choking on the water and then she saw a yellowish light and felt like she was breathing in the water. She said the water got really warm and it was no longer cold.
The closer the light came the better she felt and then she saw her father with the glowing around him. She screamed but he told her not to be afraid. He was there for her. She said he picked her up and swam to the top. He walked her to the steps and laid her down. He told her that he would go and fetch me and we would be okay. She watched him go back into the river and he was gone for about 2 minutes and when he came back up he had me over his shoulder.
He sat me down and Carol said he placed his hand on my back and out gushed all of this water through my nose and mouth. He then gave me to Carol and told Carol to keep me warm and the ambulance was on its way. He told her that he loved her and walked back into the river until he faded into a street light on the Kentucky (other) side.
I found it hard to believe at first. I knew a man had called in from the bridge above the river from the news. He saw us going in the water and called from his cell phone. So I figured that guy drove down and saved us and Carol had just been hallucinating. They never found our car but insurance gave us our money because we were on the news and nobody would purposefully fake a drowning to that degree for money.
We went to the Serpentine Wall that following Sunday. It was dusk and the sun was setting and I was just getting ready to tell Carol that I had a hard time believing her story but then I saw a hub cap that looked like our hub cap close to the edge of the shore. I was scared to get it at first but Carol kept edging me on to get it so I picked it up. It had a bracelet that her father used to wear on it. It was like a twined brown leather bracelet. When I saw that I knew she was telling the truth.
I never really revealed how we survived to anyone. I just let people think that we were rescued by the modest cell phone caller who chose to stay anonymous. Maybe that guy was her father too, I don't know. Carol and I aren't together anymore but we keep in touch. She still calls on her father when she is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
E-mail me your comments/questions/suggestions!
MuseNet Home Page/Psychic Readings/SpiritLinks/Amazing Story Contest