Twice Saved in One Summer

From: 
Story type: Angel
Location: Mayday, Georgia
Source: Form Submission
Date submitted: Wed Mar  2 13:04:00 2011

In the summer of 1982, I would ride my bicycle 10 miles to the Mayday bridge in Mayday, Ga. to swim in the Alapaha river. The river was wide at the bridge and the bank of the river was made of white sand. There was a sand bar in the middle of the river where people would have cook outs or just lay in the sun. On this particular day, I spent some time swinging from a tree swing that I had put up on an old tree that hung out over the river. I liked doing all sorts of acrobatics while in the air before hitting the water. Nothing out of the ordinary was happening that day until I decided to go all the way to the top of the bank and get a really high start to the swing. I had done this many times before but this time as I swung out over the river a voice that seemed to come from something next to me in the air told me not to dive. I was going to flip backwards in the air and dive into the river. For some reason, I was instantly filled with fear, not from hearing some voice but a fear of diving. I let go of the rope and went feet first into the water. On my descent, I could see a log floating just below the surface of the water and I was able to maneuver my body's motion to barely miss hitting the log. I was never able to dive from that swing again. I could swing and drop but all the acrobatics I had once done so frequently now terrified me.

Now, on a different day during that same summer, I arrived on the bridge riding my bicycle and stopped to talk to some people who were sitting on the rail. They were trying to get up the nerve to jump for their first time. Being the show-off that I was at age 17, I decided to show them "how it was done". Now I had always, and I mean every time, gone into the water below the bridge to look around and make sure nothing was in the water that I would hit when jumping. The was the first and ONLY time I didn't do that. I walked a ways up the bridge and came running full speed down the road, crossed the bridge diagonally, put one foot on the lower part of the concrete railing, the other foot on the top of the concrete railing, and leapt straight out into the air. Just as the flat part of my swan dive ended and I started downward, a very loud and clear voice spoke next to me and said, "ROLL", which is what you do when diving in shallow water. Immediately upon hitting the water, I rolled my body. My upper back slammed against the bottom and knocked all my air out. I didn't lose my senses or anything and came straight to the surface. What had happend was one end of the sand bar had collapsed and shifted under the water, shallowing the diving pool. I felt lucky that day. I would have broken my neck if I'd went in as I usually did. I never lost my fear of diving off the bridge. I loved the rush and the way the speed of the air moving past my ears quickly increased as I descended toward the water.

I have had many occassions in my life like this, before and since, and all I can figure is that I must have a purpose to fulfill on this earth because my guardian angels have sure earned their wings keeping me out of harms way.