Swimmer saves drowning tourist

Lisa Knight’s daily swim from Governors Beach to Public Beach took a dramatic and unexpected turn Thursday, when she found herself rescuing a drowning snorkeller.

While the Grand Cayman resident normally swims with her husband, Richard Morcombe, on that day, she told him to go ahead and she’d follow behind later.

She was about 65 feet from shore, about 100 yards north of Governors Beach when, she told the Compass on Friday, she heard “a muffled noise behind me”.

“I turned around and there was a guy, in his late 60s or early 70s, he had a mask on, and I could see he was distressed.

“His arms were going up and down, he was bobbing in the water. I turned around and swam back. He pulled his mask off and said ‘Help’. He kept going under and saying ‘Help’ as he came back up. Then he said, ‘Drowning, drowning’.”

Though the mother-of-four admits she’s not a strong swimmer, she quickly swam back towards the man and grabbed him.

“I didn’t do it properly at all. I know you’re supposed to put them on their back and cup their chin in your hand. I didn’t do any of that. He had a vest top on, and I just grabbed his vest top and pulled him up. I just kept swimming for shore, swimming with one arm and pulling him along with the other.”

Knight says she kept screaming at people on the beach, “Help! I need some help here!”

When the people on shore realised what was happening and that she was towing the man in, they came to help, and dragged the man from the water and placed him on the beach.

“They asked me for his name but I said I didn’t know him, I just happened to be out there. Then someone said he was called Don and was off the cruise ship,” Knight said.

A doctor who happened to be on the beach also came to help.

Knight said the doctor said she could hear fluid in his lungs, and advised that an ambulance should be called, but the man refused to let them and said he was feeling better.

“The doctor told him to be sure he saw a doctor when he got back on the ship. Then his wife appeared and she seemed quite distressed. I told her to make sure he did go to the doctor on the ship,” Knight said.

Afterwards, when she caught up with her husband at Public Beach, she burst into tears, she said, “probably just from the shock”.

Knight says it’s ironic that of the people in her family, she’s the one who has rescued a swimmer. Her 17-year-old son has trained as a lifeguard. “I can only do the breast stroke, I can’t even do the crawl,” she said.

She added, “I just did what anybody would do. Other people might have done it more stylishly!”