A mother of three risked her own life to rescue a drowning man during a West Palm Beach, Florida, flood while 20 people just pulled out their phones to watch instead of stepping in to help.
Our modern phone culture has deeply affected our society in ways that are hard to stomach. In almost any tragic scene today, we can see people simply standing there with their screens to record the suffering of other people for social media likes instead of lifting a finger to help them. The world has reached a point where many have become inhumane, showing absolutely no emotion or sympathy for someone struggling right in front of them. But God has set apart a few people from this wicked world and Annmarie Sanchez is clearly one of them.
On a Monday night, heavy rain turned Willow Pond Road into a hidden trap where drivers couldn’t tell where the pavement ended and the lake began. Sanchez heard from her daughter that a vehicle had plunged directly into the dark water, and she rushed outside. She found about 20 residents standing on the bank recording the sinking car, but nobody was making a move to rescue the driver.
She decided she had to act right then. “I had no idea if there were crocodiles, alligators, anything. I just kind of went for it. I wasn’t going to let him die,” Sanchez said.
Most of us would have stayed safely on the grass assuming someone else would handle it. She jumped into the water instead.
By the time she swam out, the car was completely submerged and the driver was struggling to keep his head above water. She grabbed him and started pulling him toward the shore, but the effort quickly drained her strength.
“Then I got really desperate, where I really couldn’t hold him anymore, and I started asking for a helping hand, and I’m yelling,” Sanchez said. Video from the scene captured her screaming “Somebody, pull my hand, please.”
The crowd on the bank still didn’t move to assist her. “That was very frustrating, and it made me feel, kind of, like, very inhumane,” she explained. She was seconds away from letting go. “I have him by the arm. I can’t keep up,” she is heard saying on the video.
Finally, a woman swam out into the water to support her and together they pulled the man to shore safely while his car sank to the bottom.
Three days later, Sanchez got a knock on her door. It was the man she had pulled from the lake introducing himself as Bill. Security camera footage caught the exact moment they saw each other.
“I was so happy to see his face,” Sanchez said. “We hugged. That’s the first thing that we did.” While they held each other, she told him, “I’m so glad you’re OK.”
Bill looked at her with deep gratitude. “The first thing he said was, ‘Thank you for having the courage to jump in when nobody else did. Thank you for saving me,'” Sanchez said. She simply told him, “I just couldn’t sit there and let a stranger die in front of me and not do anything.”
Sanchez now hopes to keep in touch with Bill and she is actively looking for the unnamed woman who swam out to help her.
When our fellow human beings suffer, God does not want us to just stand there and watch like those 20 people did. Wherever we are and whatever the situation may be, we must do what we can. When others face a difficulty we need to step in and treat their struggle as if it were our very own.
As the Book of James tells us, faith without works is dead (James 2:26). I am praising God for giving that mom the strength to hold onto that man when she was completely exhausted. May God bless her and her family abundantly.
WATCH: Mom Saves a Drowning Stranger While the Crowd Watches
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