I Believed I was Going to Die  

by Karen

When I was a little girl I thought my brothers were amazing, when they were not teasing me of course. They could do all kind of cool things, like catch frogs, toads, lizards, snakes, spiders etc… even live mice.  Each had qualities that I wanted to emulate. I thought that Blair was especially brilliant. He seemed to know everything and could tell the most amazing stories (He still tells the best stories). I just wanted to share a time that Blair went from being my brilliant brother to being my “hero”.

Growing up one of our favorite places to go camping was Palisades reservoir over by Swan Lake, Idaho. A couple of reasons I liked Palisades better than some other places that we camped was that the water there seemed to be not as ice cold and because fishing was not as good so we knew that we were going to be able to swim, water ski and play in the water more. Many times the girls were dropped off onto a raft in the middle of the lake to swim with life jackets around the raft while the boys and others water skied. Other times we would swim and play around the edges of the lake. One of our favorite activities on the beach area was to find an old driftwood log to float around on.  On this particular occasion we were playing on a couple of large logs placed together side by side. The others had climbed onto the logs and I had tried to climb on but my life jacket got hooked on a little snag and each time I tried to pull myself up the log would roll and pull me under.  I started to panic and could not think how to help myself except to hold onto the log that was drowning me.  Blair could see that I was under the water and not coming up so he grabbed my life-jacket and pulled me up out of the water. I sputtered and gasped for air and then I went back down under the water as soon as he let me go. He grabbed my life-jacket and pulled me out of the water again and I was sputtering and gasping for air again and he could see that I was panicking. Again as soon as he let go of my life-jacket I went under. It took him a few times pulling me up to figure out what the problem was. That my life jack was hooked on the log and as the log rolled it pulled me under and I could not get my feet under me to stand up because the life jacket was also hooked around my waist. So when the log rolled I was pulled into a lying position right under the logs and could not get into an upright position even though the water was only about three feet deep. It was even hard for him to get me undone when he had climbed off and was standing in the water. He had to lift the heavy log up and undo the strap from the log snag that it was caught on. I have always been so very grateful to Blair for saving my life, for I knew that I was truly in trouble and did not know how to save myself. Each time he pulled me up I could see his face and hoped and prayed that he would know what I could not tell him.  This was only one of a few times that I felt my life was spared. I am very grateful my Heavenly Father helped my brother Blair know what was needed and that he was there to become my hero that day.