Summer is 10 years old and felt the ground disappear beneath her feet.
On August 8 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, when the rip current pulled her out to sea. Her uncle Ernest went in after her, but the waves were overpowering him too. That was when Derrick Moore, a 47-year-old teacher and father of four who was nearby, went into the water without thinking. He reached the girl, held her, and managed to get a flotation device to carry her back to shore. He never came out.
“Grab my arm”, Moore told the girl’s uncle before the current pulled him underwater. His body washed up on shore the next day. His daughter remembered him as “a great father” whom everyone will miss. Ernest, her uncle, put it plainly: “He saved my life, and without a doubt my niece’s too”. Today Summer has only one thing to say to him: thank you, I truly owe you my life.