Lifeguard Drowning: Pulled Out to Sea

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“It's a hot summer's day in July, 1967, on Spain's southern coast.”

Today, the cost-del-sol is living up to its name.

The shoreline is steeped in sunshine, brilliant rays, glinting of the soft golden sand, and as your waters of the Mediterranean. Rightly coloured fishing boats bob gently on the rolling waves, followed by flocks of gals, arcing and reeling through the blue sky as they search for food. Along the miles of pristine beaches that make up this coastline, people relax on lounges or towels, basking in the beauty of their surroundings. But in the small port town of Win Herola, the usually serene atmosphere, is suddenly broken by urgent shouts.

On the beach, a small crowd has gathered facing out towards the ocean.

They squint against the sun and point in horror at two figures locked together in the water.

From a distance, they could almost be embracing. Out in the waves, thrashing against the pool of the undertone, 28-year-old guy, Tapplin, titans his grip on the woman he's tried to save, desperately attempting to keep them both above the surface of the water. You're in a very tumultuous situation in the sea, you're in a grip of like an animal it feels like, you know, and you realise you're not in control, that's the other thing as well, you've lost control of the situation.

Guy focuses all his energy on kicking his legs and keeping his chin above the surface, but he's fighting a losing battle. A wave rears up and crashes over his head, the briny water stinging his eyes and running down his throat. Despite his best efforts, they're being pulled further out to sea, the figures on the sand grow smaller with alarming speed. His strength is fading fast, and his hold on the woman starts to wave. His scans the empty stretch of water around him.

There is nobody to offer help. There are only chance of survival is to make it back to the shore, and that possibility is rapidly vanishing. I remember sinking back down in the shore, and I couldn't move at all, my arms and legs. I just had no body strength, you know, a young got longed round, and you've only got to take a few miles of water and you've had it, really.

“Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes?”

If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. People suddenly forced a fight for their lives. In this episode, we meet Guy Tapla.

In 1967, directionless and in search of adventure, the young man travels with his girlfriend to the south of Spain. A country going through a strange and turbulent time, still under the dictatorship of general Franco, but also enjoying a massive tourism pool.

Settling into life on the coast, at first the days slip by in a happy haze.

“When a fellow beach girl gets caught in the pool of a sudden and powerful rip tide, Guy jumps into help.”

Battling against the choppy waves and strong current, he quickly finds himself plunged into a desperate fight for his own life as well. We went straight out on this rip, the undertow had us. Guy and the woman will be swept far out to sea, beyond the ridge of any help. Belly able to keep their heads above water, their strength is running out.

In that sea, I'm you're in the grip of something and you read about it and see it on the telly, then it's happening to you.

You're caught in this current. Everything's incredibly intense.

“Whatever's happening beyond the conscious mind is going into full action, you know, above survival.”

I'm John Hopkins, from The Noise of Podcast Network, this is Real Survival Stories. It's July 1967, a beautiful summer's day in the south of Spain.

The air is hot and dry, the dusty landscape patched by the sweltering heat that is so characteristic of the area this time of year.

In the brilliant blue skies above Wineirola, situated some 20 miles down the coast from Malaga, the sun burns fiercely. Its rays bouncing of the pretty white washed buildings that make up this small and elucian port town. On a brush-covered hill above the settlement, the remains of a 10th century, more-ish castle overlook the rich blue waters of the Mediterranean. By the white-capped waves, rolled gently onto the miles of sandy beach that board of the town.

“But among the more traditional buildings, new structures are also starting to spring up.”

The apartment blocks hotels and restaurants for a growing tourist trade, which is begun to blossom along this picturesque coastline. In the past decade or so, increasing numbers of international holiday makers have begun to visit the aptly named Pasta del Sol, drawn to the warm climate and beautiful shores. The resulting economic boom is being felt across the country, which still under Franco's military dictatorship is developing with a standing speed. Most tourists come to the area for just a week or two of relaxation, but there are others, such as 28-year-old Guy Tapplin, who have travelled here with a less firm plan in mind.

When you got down there, you didn't talk about what you did just entered the life. It wasn't a leap for me, which is a very natural thing to do. I mean, I was free, free to do whatever I wanted. Only a few days ago, Guy was in the UK, working as a lifeguard at a pool in London. When he saw some of his contemporaries drop everything and head out into the big wide world, it was inspired. Soon Guy and his art student girlfriend Lou decided to take the plunge by quitting their lives in England and driving to Spain.

The other lifeguards I was working with, what they used to do was to get a car on HBO, usually an American car, you know, big and then just clear off, not pay the things or just clear off. They went down the spine, so we thought, "We'll join them down there." Since arriving in Foyerola, Guy and Lou have made the most of their new surroundings, getting to know both the locals and other tourists and finding casual work to keep some money rolling in. Lou got a job in the Indian restaurant, it was very unusual in Spain in that period.

And I got a job as a chef, but it's a chef involved, then cooking the food somewhere, or freezing it. So all I had to do was, when I got the older, you take out the freezer, eat it, serve it, you know, it was pretty basic. But I usually got drunk on fortune, and I got the sack out there. So I was floating around on the beach. With plenty of free time on their hands, Guy and Lou enjoy many restful days of sand and sun.

Today is especially hot, the coastline looks particularly dazzling. Lou rolls over on the sand, exposing her tanned back to the warming rays. Besides her, Guy shield his eyes and glances out at the expense of foam-crested waves, where people paddle lazily in the surf or swim slowly out into deeper waters.

I was born in 1939, in London, my dad worked at Woolidge Arsenal, and it got bombed out,

“because they come up to terms, and he had to move, and he got posted to her effort, and me and my mum went there.”

And I went to school there, and I suppose, really, they probably weren't very fond of people from London. They thought we were a bit cocky, and I didn't really make any friends. But even there, you know, we experienced the war. Despite moving out of the capital for a time, and despite his father being unable to serve due to health reasons,

the Second World War still deeply affected Guy and his family.

His childhood was marked by the blitz, and memories of it have remained with him over the decades. One particular incident still haunts him. In London, I went back and stayed with my arm, and they had an Anderson shelter, which is a sort of nothing screw to the floor. I must have been probably told the end of the war when they started to use flying bombs,

and we got under the table, mom, me and my arm, and I was absolutely terrified. It's the first time as a child. I'd had this choir, but not that sort of terrifying fear, and it came down in the next street. You were one mile.

“We went out the next time, the house had just disappeared, isn't it?”

After the war ended, Guy became interested in the natural world around him, making frequent trips alone to immerse himself in the beauty and wildness of the countryside. These trips help to shape his character, fostering his sense of independence and self-sufficiency. Through a lot of my life, I'd been detached from those around me, and really not able to adapt, but in a way I did unconsciously,

because I responded very much to nature.

I used to go fishing, but if I clicked in a collecting, I was always out on my own as well.

It was difficult to get out of a chap's to go out with you. So I suppose I'd either partly be conditioned to be on my own a lot, or I was that way inclined, which I tend to think. And it's a good thing and a bad thing, you know, it's always a double-edged shoulder sort of thing. After leaving school at 15, Guy worked for a while in the post office,

before doing two years of national service, one of them in Cyprus. Upon being discharged in 1960, he began looking for work. Jobs were pretty awful, and I did a sort of series of jobs. I've ended up doing a ladies-air dressing course, came out of that. Then when got the lifeguard's job in 1962, went through a series of lightouts,

and when the cleaning and signing off the doll. But what I wanted to do now was not to get into the studio. The Master by Tag Laptop, the soft-handed internet. It's a master's, I'm sorry. I said, "You can do it, you can do it."

Yes, you're a master, right? But you don't trust me. It's a great deal, it's a great deal, it's a great deal. It's a great deal, it's a great deal, it's a great deal. And if you work, you'll be able to do it.

- Is it a deal? - It's a deal. It's a great deal. Now, let's go to the studio. Salinger, Kafka. I was reading all those in the library in the wintertime.

I used to go out there and just pull them off the shelf. You know, Hemingway, Jack London, all those sort of stories. Probably more read now by certain people, but they weren't then. Amongst the work in classes. It wasn't long before you discovered a trove of new art and literature.

It began firing his imagination and his desire to find out more.

“I sensed there was another word, remember going into the reading room in Latenstone Library.”

And that studio magazine, in that pictures of Hot Me, this must have been in 1960. When he did those San Francisco pictures of the swimming pool, and I thought, wow, they're really good. And it was a lot of energy about then. With the advent of the counterculture, guys soon found himself immersed in the excitement and hedonism of swinging 60s London.

The revolutionary melting pots of clubs, drugs, music, art and fashion.

It was amazing. I saw into that world. And then I met this girlfriend at Honesy Lido where I was working as a lifeguard. And she was in the art world. She was an art student at Honesy.

Up to then I'd been basically a working class boy. In those days, there was no crossover. But his social circle quickly widened. Working at the swimming pool, or Lido, gave Guy the opportunity to meet all sorts of strange and interesting people.

Swim pools are funny places. They attract odd people. It was that sort of weird environment. And I'd worked at a lot of pools.

“And there was a lot of weird things going on.”

Some quite strange things, people dying and all sorts of things. We're looking back on it.

It attracted people that were always on the move.

By the time he was in his late 20s, Guy found himself adrift and purposeless. I'm sure of how he wanted to live the rest of his life or what he wanted to do. Most people, I grew up with that period, got a job or a trade was something you got. It was a cure, you guaranteed a wage. The things to get was Fleet Street on the press.

Meet polter, another one. Light among the tems, which I nearly got. But it was too far to meet a travel. Docs was another one, another good job. But I just float it for one thing to another.

I had no sense of direction.

There was nothing in the working class.

“It was only why you could get out of it.”

It was to be a footballer or a boxer. Guys, lack of direction may come with problems. But it also means yes for your commitments. And more freedom than many to reinvent himself. Try something new.

So when some of his fellow lifeguards decide to travel down to Spain, there is little holding him back from joining them. Reclining on the beach in the Costa del Sol, Guy and Lou stretch out on their towels. Their bodies cushioned by the soft sand, is the chatter of locals in the crash of the waves echo around the sun kissed shoreline.

He sighs, enjoying the warmth on his face and the cloudless blue sky above it. This is the light. But suddenly the calm is interrupted. Seemingly out of nowhere, the usually serene sea changes. The waves growing large and wild as they thunder onto the sand.

And then somebody calls Guy's name. I'm on the beach in Thinkorot and there's a bar next to us. Shoulder where we sit around and it's a big surfer. Very big surfer on it. There was no one on it and I'm sitting there and it's hot.

I'm sitting there with Lou and this guy comes flying down the beach. And says, there's somebody drowning further down.

“But you must have known that I was a lifeguard.”

Guy leads to his feet and follows the man back up the beach. The warm sand sticking to his toes as they run. It's hard going in the heat and by the time they reach a small crowd gathering on the shore, they're panting. The air fills with confused shelves, Spanish and English mingling as the onlookers point in mountain concern to a small, lone figure struggling in the water some way out.

She's moving quickly away from the land, dragged out into the sea by some powerful unseen force.

In the chaos, someone fetches a rope and harness kept in a local bar for emergencies. They shove it towards Guy, then gesture urgently towards the woman in the water. As the only trained lifeguard on hand, it seems the task of rescuing her has fallen to him. And I felt, well, why am I getting it? I'm an iron on my lifeguard, but I mean, obviously thought I was going to do it and I did.

And I put it on, and I knew nothing about diving under the waves. Guy wraps the harness around his chest. You can do little else. Out in the sea, the woman's head keeps sinking under the surf, and without help she will likely drown. Besides, everyone's expectations are on him. I thought, oh my god, you know, I've got to do this, you know, and I really didn't want to, but I did.

Suppressing his nerves, Guy secures the harness. Several people in the crowd grasp the rope, redding themselves to pull him back in once he reaches the struggling woman. Then, he heads for the water. I could see this woman. She was right out beyond the surf. What happened was that I went out and there's big, big, big waves.

And if you thought you ain't got bashwatter, but the undertow, carriage you out. As soon as he plunges into the sea, Guy is caught in the grip of a surprisingly ferocious current. Within seconds, he's carried away in the swell, tossed around as if he were nothing more than a cork in the ocean. This rescue mission is going to be even harder than he thought. You're in a very tumultuous situation in the sea, you know, the current's got you, you're in a grip of like an animal, it feels like.

You realise you're not in control.

It's July 1967 on Spain's Custodill cell.

“For the most part, the waters of the Mediterranean are relatively warm and calm at this time of year.”

But today, large waves are breaking up on the shore, and a strong swell is churning the usually placid sea. And in the turbulent sea of the Custodill for Herola, two figures are being carried away from land with horrifying speed,

caught in the pool of a fast and powerful current.

The guy's aptling battles his way through the waves, trying to reach the woman he entered the water to save. Although he's worked as a lifeguard at ladows and pools back in the UK, he's unprepared for the unpredictable might of the sea. I didn't know anything about, under toes and rips, I'd worked in a lido, and if you can swim, you could save somebody, it's in a lido, it's a peace cake, you know. Usually it's a kid, usually they're in the three or four for a water, so you can stand up and you just pull them out.

The sea is another thing altogether. Guy and the woman he's tried to help are caught in a rips tide, a fast, dangerous current caused by tidal movements. It flows away from the land and pulls everything in its path out to sea.

They can extend for hundreds, sometimes thousands of feet, with potentially deadly consequences to unsuspecting swimmers.

Guy fights his way toward the struggling woman as the waves rear up and crash down on top of it. The rope attached to his harness stretches out behind him, his one flimsy lifeline to the small crowd of onlookers back on land. Eventually, he is close enough to get hold of the woman. I mean, you're just in a very big swell, you're going up and down, you know. I'll grab the hold on, she must have waited about for in stone, early 50s, and she was Spanish.

“She didn't say anything to me, and I don't remember saying anything to I just grabbed the hold of her.”

Wordlessly, the Spanish woman clings to Guy, her fingernails digging into his arm. He wraps the harness around her to bind them together, then turns towards the shore and signals to be hold in.

The crowd on the beach heaves on the road, dragging the combined weight of two people against the pull of the reptile.

A human chain begins to form on the sand, snaking out into the surf to try to grab Guy and the woman, as soon as they are brought into shallow water. The harness cuts deep into his chest as the rope strains toward, making it hard for him to breathe. Slowly, the two of them are hauled closer to the land and to safety. They fall to human chain into the wall or we got really close, probably four or five foot away.

She was virtually on the beach, and they grabbed the hold of her, and then I was pulled out. The rope broke. It happens in a heartbeat. The seemingly solid line is suddenly severed. The fraid ends left flapping uselessly in the waves.

Having been stored in a beachside bar for years, unneeded and unused, the rope has gone rotten and snapped. Hands reach towards Guy and the woman, trying to pull them from the grass with a carrot. But it's too late. Instantly, the power of the rip tide is upon them once again. The woman is dragged from the hands of her rescuers, and the pair of them are swept back out to sea,

their chance of rescue truly snatched away. We went straight out of Guy on his rip. The undertow had us, I was carried out with her, through her wives, up and down, and then we were back where we started in the big swell. In a single moment, the situation has changed drastically.

Pulled back out into deep water by the rip tide, and with nothing now tethering into the shore, they are truly beyond the bounds of help. As their drags further away from land, the reality of what just happened begins to sink in. Everything's very brilliant. It means strange enough, incredibly alive.

I mean, so it should be really, because everything in you, at that point, is very rapidly trying to assimilate what's going on, and is preparing you for trying to survive.

“Very quickly, like seconds, I think, from the minute of being carried out.”

You're not in a conscious state, really, not in the normal way, where you've got time for reflection or anything like that. Everything's incredibly intense.

But there is literally can do against the power of the sea.

“Still holding onto the Spanish woman, Guy kicks hard below the waterline,”

desperate to keep them both above the surface as waves crash over their heads. The effort is overwhelming. See, he's crashing over you and it's going to be a mouth and in your mouth and all that, and you're holding on to a worm. It's in a terrible turn or obviously, I was afraid. When you get into those situations, everything's happening very quickly.

It's what it feels like, anyway. And your mental state is definitely changed. I mean, you're on the edge of panicking.

And that's the second time in my life, where I'd felt the same thing as being with my under-this-and-a-s-s-shel-or-in-wood-green.

The same terror he felt as a child during the blitz, grips him once again. Thrashing against the rip-tide, his strength is being sapped. Saltwater runs down his face, stinging his eyes and making his throat roar and red. As the seconds turn into minutes, and they're pulled further and further from the shore, their chances of being rescued grow slimmer.

Guy spits out a mouthful of briny water and looks back at the yellow stretch of the beach dotted with small figures. Many aren't even aware of the commotion and are happily getting on with their day relaxing on the beach. It's a disturbing juxtaposition. I saw people playing ball running about everything was normal. They were just went on with their life on the beach.

“I remember sinking back down in the swell and I couldn't move at all my arms and legs.”

I've never been in that position.

It's like when you're white lifting, you might do 10 reps and another 10. The last couple of reps you can hardly move your arms. But it was like I just had no body strength. It was just like I was a torso with it on it. Guy is entirely spent. You cannot go on like this. That's when I let her go.

I didn't think about it. It was an intuitive move. I just let her go. I'm entirely depleted. He submits to the sea. Letting the waves crush over him as the current drags him away from the woman. Neither of them has any strength left in their limbs. It seems all they can do now is wait for the inevitable end. You've got a long drown in. You've only got to take a few mouthfuls of water and you've had it really, you know.

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“Amidst the turbulent waves, Guy drifts further away from the woman.”

The riptide is in total control of their limp bodies. The movement of their arms and legs becomes smaller and smaller, weaker and weaker. It's so tempting to stop fighting. Another torrent of salt water crashes over his head. For a few seconds his vision blurs and he squeezes his eyelids shut.

He opens them again and blinks scanning the water and taking in the debris caught in the pull of the riptide. And then he sees something floating straight towards him. So we're both bobbin about there. And I'm looking around in this swell and there's sort of deck chairs, balls, plastic bits of paper floating about. It loads of stuff, you know.

And suddenly this lilos come up. In a flash, a sliver of hope. The drag of the riptide has ensnared a long mattress like inflatable, designed for lounging on the water. Just seconds before. It looked like the current may kill them. Now it's a symptom of a potential salvation.

For me, thinking hang on a minute, this is not going very well. And let an hour go. I would think probably 10, 20 seconds, you know, and then then the lilos turn in up. And you could look at it both ways that it was a lilos floating out there in an inevitable really. But was it?

Is that part of the beach? Well, any other lilos? Guy isn't about to pass up this piece of extraordinary good fortune. There's no time to waste. As the lilos zigzags to water, he launches himself at the inflatable.

His weary arms outstretched.

Exhausts him and relief washing over him as the float takes his weight. But he can't rest yet. Barely pausing for breath, Guy kicks his laden legs and slowly flounders his way towards the Spanish woman. His muscles, crying out with every movement. Eventually he gets close enough for her to grab hold of the lilos as well.

And together they cling on for dear life, the chest's heavey. We held on to it. And of course, so buoyant and it was fully inflated.

The waive, the pictures I just carried us in, it was amazing.

You know, hanging onto this lilos, both of us for groomed death. Incredibly, within moments of finding the float, the pair seemed to drift out of the rips pool escaping the strength of the powerful current. Once out of its grip, they're swiftly carried towards the shore by the large waves, back towards the small crowd waiting anxiously on the sand.

They'd formed a chain again and they took her first.

“They got her out and I remember this feeling of total isolation and terrified.”

I was terrified of being taken out again to that place, and we experienced what I just been through. And the guy held his hand out to me and I said, "I remember saying to him, "Don't let me go." The man's hold doesn't falter. He tightens his grip on guys arm and pulls him from the water. Soaked to the skin and exhausted from his ordeal.

Guy lurched his under the sand. His muscles, a quivering, his legs reduced to jelly. He's barely able to walk. I was very, very frightened, but he did, he pulled me out and I staggered up the beach. And somebody called me over and said to somebody, "Oh, she got over, look at him." Before he's even had a chance to recover, he's led further up the beach to a man lying face up on the sand.

He kneels beside the figure. But it's quite clear, there's nothing he can do.

He was dead and he's always rolled for the sand.

There was a new spike right there and I picked you up. He put it over his face. Sort of thing you, when you're young, you've seen people do in the Talian order and you cover their face. I then got out and just said he's dead, nobody said anything, I'll remember. And I went further down the beach and there was someone giving me out the mouth to a woman that was being sick, another Spanish woman. The sight of the seas, other victims, is sober.

A stark indication of just how dangerous the reptile was and how close Guy came to his end. After reuniting with Lou, he stumbles away from the beach to rest. The sound of the waves still rumbling behind him. The next day Guy started trying to process the whole experience, but it isn't easy.

“I think really what happened to me, I must have been in real shock without knowing it.”

Could people say to you, you know you're in shock and you don't know you're in shock. It's a weird, very strange feeling. And all I remember after that was the next day someone signed to me, the guy that was dead was the owner of the local shoe market. The deadly reptile causes scars within a small community, reverberating through the Adilic Coastal town. Though, despite claiming at least one life, it isn't widely reported on.

I don't know why I didn't hear about it afterwards, you know. I mean, in this country you dare about it, beyond the news, because that was just one beach. It was all wrapped us down that Spanish bit there. A big sea was running, other people would have been getting stuck as well. I don't know what the answer to that is.

In fact, he never even finds out the name of the woman he rescued from the water.

Nor what happened to our afterwards. To this day, there are elements of this story that remain difficult for Guy to fathom.

“That was so peculiar, when I think back on it.”

I mean, you think that she obviously had friends on the beach, presumably, probably our family. What were you doing while this was going on? I mean, I'm not thought about this before. What were they doing? What was everyone doing? She was out there, everyone could see it. What were they all exactly? Didn't do anything.

Nobody did anything. That's for Guy. He spends a lot of time in the aftermath of the event, thinking about what happened. He feels a range of often contrasting emotions. I mean, I intend myself a bit, you know, for letting this poor woman go out there.

And I thought to myself, yeah, I did save her, though.

“We all think we're heroes when we're young, until you get a chance to prove it.”

But often in those situations, you can't think in those emergency. You could hear people say, "I'll buckle down and I've got to get out of this one." In my experience, you don't get that chance. You're in frenzy, panic. I thought I was probably immune to deep trauma.

And up to then, I suppose, I had been. And that was probably the beginning of me, if you could say, coming out of the stock. You know, I wasn't in a good place.

So, and after Guy decides to leave Spain and return home.

Sadly, his relationship doesn't last. Seeking another fresh start back in England, he begins to explore his creativity. And before long, he's working in fashion, making and selling belts and bags. Initially, he achieves some measure of success, but fashion's changed quickly. It was very much the end of the hippie period, and it suddenly changed back

into French fashion, really, you know, proper Chanel and all that sort of stuff. Why you beyond anything I could do? Or beat would be interested in it. And it was a bit of a Christ's point for me.

And then decided I'd got to get out of the fashion business,

and got a job as a labour and regents park. It's peaceful work, surrounded by greenery and wildlife. After six months of laboring, he started to look after the birds in the royal park. And soon his creative side is inspired again. He begins making the sculptures of the creatures.

His work attracts attention, and he starts selling his creations. In the decades, since he has become a well-known and respected artist, whose work is shown and sold of exhibitions across the country. Today, having married, settled down, and found his sense of purpose, guys able to better reflect on his experiences in Spain all those years ago.

And on the unlikely piece of good fortune that allowed him to survive. If you wanted to call it divine intervention, I think life put it there that way. For me, that's how I see it. And it's not an ego thing. I think life had a purpose for me, and I think it probably created that situation as well in a way.

“I know, anyone listening to things that aren't Barney, but that's what it felt like.”

That's all I can say. We don't deeply believe it, but it made a big mark on me, obviously. I think trauma does. In the six decades since his encounter with the rip-tight, guys had ample time to experience the many highs and lows of living. And his remained staunchly determined to feel all of the accompanying emotions,

both the bad and good. You can't go around thinking I'm going to run into something any minute, like I've made bull charge, and I've got a step off the curb, and it by a bus, which can't happen very easily. I think it's very good to be aware. I think fear, anxiety, stress, depression, they're horrible,

but they teach you a lot about life. They take you right to the edge. I'm not a brave person at all. I really am not.

“And the only reason I can front the more painful side of my life is that I know if I don't,”

it's going to get the better or means stop me living. Next time on real survival stories, a tale of utter mayhem in the flooded mountains of Myanmar. In 2024, Joel Hoffman is living and working in the Southeast Asian country as is his elder brother. But when a tropical typhoon unleashes catastrophic flooding on their quiet rural town, the siblings will find themselves thrust into a terrifying new position of responsibility,

trying to rescue as many locals as they can from the deluge. They'll face collapsing buildings, hidden hazards, and utter pandemonium. And when the flood cuts off their early route back home, the stakes are raised once again. It's time to sink or swim. That's next time on real survival stories.

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