I'm sure you can. I know if one of mine died like that I would be devistated, and legit probably drink myself to death within a month or two of it happening. I honestly don't think I could handle the death of one of my children like that.
It's a sensitive subject. Poor word choice but it wasn't his intention to insult anyone. He's apologized and realized his mistake, let's move on.
I do have to say that sensitive a subject it is ,but some good points have been made here,one thing is as a group we use the beach and the ocean so much more than the average citizen that we are more aware of heavy currents and rips and i feel that almost as an obligation to tell parents about conditions ,and i know many of us here if not all do the same thing when we are down at the beach ,we all want the kids to be safe so be on the look out my brothers.
The ocean is so dangerous and most inlanders have absolutely no idea of the danger. Two young girls got extremely lucky early last fall that my son and I decided to go for an evening surf. Waves were shoulder high plus after one of those hurricane swells we had faded away. As we walked down the beach towards 5th street in Ocean City my son says to me "Check out those two girls getting sucked out in the rip by the jetty". I look and at first I couldn't even see them. He had to point them out to me cause their heads were hard to see bobbing along in the rip. The one girl clearly couldn't swim and the other was apparently trying to help. We took off and got to them just as they reached the tip of the 7th street jetty. The one girl was in the classic face to the sky position that happens just before someone goes under and drowns when my son go to her. Literally seconds from drowning. I gathered up the other girl who was barely treading water about 10 yards away. We got them on our boards and negotiated the waves crashing on the end of the jetty and brought them in at 8th Street. It was crazy the amount of luck it was for the stars to come together for me and my son to be there at that exact moment to save them. Nobody else was going to see them. There were no surfers to the south in the direction they were heading and with the sun glare from the setting sun nobody to the North ever would have seen them. If my son hadn't convinced me me to go surfing again before dark and if we had delayed biking up by a few moments. If my son hadn't seen them. If there hadn't have been two of us with surfboards. Such a close call. Not even a thank you from the mom as she scolded the two girls for wandering off. She had no idea how close to a major tragedy her family had just come.
That's the crazy thing. Alot of us have rescue stories. And iv heard alot of you guys tell stories where the parents don't even say thank you. Mine/our first reaction is that they are unappreciative. But reading your story i just had this thought. Do those parents even realize that some stranger literally saved there child's life? Without that random surfer looking for a wave they would be burying (hopefully if the body was found) the child. Probably don't even realize it. It's crazy to think about. And quite dangerous/sad.
Much like the others on here ive saved a bunch of folks. Here the deal. Who cares if the parents say "thank you"? We are stewards of the ocean. We are blessed with the oppurtunity to partake in the greatest activity on the planet. The least we can do for this otherwise selfish endeavor is to be lucky enough to leverage the skill and knowledge to save a fellow human from certain death.
Don't know if this is directed at my comment or not. But I never said we needed a thank you. Was simply hitting on the reason why we don't...aka the parents don't even realize.