I'm deeply sorry for the loss of your father. Do you mind expanding on the story of watching the two men drown? I'm curious how you found yourself in that situation.
Sure, here is something I wrote in an earlier comment the day after it happened.
"Yesterday we took our two dogs to the river for a walk. Two men got into trouble in the water, I jumped in to help. All I could do was help another man get free of one of the drowning men.
The fellow rescuer couldn't breathe with the panicking man grabbing him and the current pulling them both under. If I'd been first too them I'm sure I'd be dead as the other rescuer was in much better shape than me.
So I helped a man get free of another man's desperate struggle for life. I watched as two men died a few meters from me. In front of their family. A woman asked my wife why we weren't helping them. It was her husband and father.
The water was too dangerous, the men too panicked, and I was too unfit.
Emergency services recovered three bodies from that river. A woman and her daughter had drowned in the same spot a week ago. The woman's body was found by the divers looking for the two men."
I wouldn't claim to have saved a life. I think that guy could have gotten free on his own. I'm glad I helped him but wouldn't want to overstate my contribution.
You need a way to help people float and to pull them in.
Do not let a drowning person grab you they may kill you.
If I had stopped to think I would have tied our two dog leads together and thrown them in. I could have pulled them in quickly. They were only 3 or 4 meters from the shore.
Another option would have been to link arms with the strangers there and pull them out together.
An incredibly sad story I heard a few years back, when a dog could not get out of the water and seemed to have started drowning, so a boy jumped in to help the dog but then also started drowning, and so his father went in trying to rescue him. Both drowned; the dog somehow managed to get out of the water on its own…
I just want to echo the advice: talk to someone, preferably a professional. You've been through the wringer. Best wishes from the other side of our planet.
"Yesterday we took our two dogs to the river for a walk. Two men got into trouble in the water, I jumped in to help. All I could do was help another man get free of one of the drowning men.
The fellow rescuer couldn't breathe with the panicking man grabbing him and the current pulling them both under. If I'd been first too them I'm sure I'd be dead as the other rescuer was in much better shape than me.
So I helped a man get free of another man's desperate struggle for life. I watched as two men died a few meters from me. In front of their family. A woman asked my wife why we weren't helping them. It was her husband and father.
The water was too dangerous, the men too panicked, and I was too unfit.
Emergency services recovered three bodies from that river. A woman and her daughter had drowned in the same spot a week ago. The woman's body was found by the divers looking for the two men."
Here is a new article about the event.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2022/01/three-bod...