I think I now understand why the likes of Batman and Jesus do what they do.

It’s not about saving lives for the good of society.
It’s about the rush from the high you get when you save lives.

During the five days I just had off camping at a beach, I had to carry a screaming boy (who crashed off of his bike and into another boy on a bike) back to his tent, because he was in shock and his mother and elderly grandfather could not move him.

Then the next day I was out body board surfing in waves bigger than me.

After an hour of doing that, I was shagged and headed into the shore. But just as I was about to hit the sand, a panicked, sobbing, screaming mother ran up to me and begged me to go out and get her 13-year-old daughter.

They had been swimming and got sucked into a rip and a hole by some rocks. The mother made it back, but the daughter didn’t.

I’ll be honest. My initial though was, Holy. Fuck. Surely I can’t be the only option this woman has. There has to be an off-duty lifeguard or a professional wrestler somewhere around. Surely?

But there wasn’t.

It was freaky. I don’t know if it was from watching TV, or the compulsory water safety training I got as a kid, but I always thought that when a person gets in trouble and starts waving for help, they go under three times and only come up twice. I saw this girl go under three times when I was only a third of the way out to her. I thought she was going to drown before I could get to her.

Time
slowed
down.

Then, fuck. She was out deep, surrounded by bigassraggedrocks. I had to time it right and swim right across them. Which I didn’t do so well, because my knees got all scraped up.

I managed to get to the girl and grab her just as another wave hit. I swallowed a little water as well.

The girl was in shock and completely exhausted from trying to fight the current by heading straight for the shore, which is the main reason people drown in these circumstances.
I got her on the board and told her to hold on tight and not to let go for any reason. Then I put an arm around her and swam sidestroke. She was a bit freaked that we were heading backwards on an angle and not straight for the shore, so I had to reassure her and explain what we needed to do. Then we’d use the waves to head back in, again on an angle.

This seemed to take forever. Then we had to surf over those bigassraggedrocks again, receiving more cuts.

So anyway. She got back to her mum on the shore. Both of them were in shock, but safe. I had started to walk away, when the mother stopped me and said thanks.

I didn’t really think I’d done anything all that special. Just a bit of swimming.

But anyway. Later when it sort of sunk in, I felt good about it.

The next day, I was eager to do it all again. But unfortunately, no one nearly died.

Bah.

So I had to settle for reaching up and flicking a stuck ball out of a tree for some kids.

It wasn't quite the same.