Parenting nightmare comes at you fast

Iknew of the first death before we went to Nickel Plate Beach in Huron, a small city on the shore of Lake Erie about 10 miles east of Sandusky.

The other death, I learned about later.

The drowning I had heard about happened July 7, when an 18-yearold man fell from his raft while trying to help four children already in trouble in the water.

But the wind was light and the waves small when we arrived at the beach July

18. Children frolicked in the shallows. Swimmers lolled on inflatables you could rent from a concession stand; the largest was a giant swan with a head that rose several feet above the cars in the parking lot.

I grew up swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. I’m comfortable with surf and familiar with rip currents. I’ve also seen Lake Erie during a few big storms and know it is not to be trifled with. The weather conditions I saw July 18 did not come close to concerning me.

We could rent the swan for $10 an hour. I couldn’t resist.

The woman running the concession cautioned us: The swan sat high up and could catch the wind, she said. Make sure someone is always on it or hanging onto a handle. Otherwise the beach’s southern winds would blow it far offshore. Nearby boats sometimes rescued the errant bird and towed it in, she said.

My kids took the swan. I carried a raft more my style: a 5-foot-long slice of pepperoni pizza.

My son is just shy of 17, my daughter closing in on 14. Those stressful hours my wife and I spent watching their every move were long behind us.

My son’s arms were long enough to paddle the swan where he wanted to go. Only after he rolled off to try out the pizza slice did I realize that my daughter’s arms were not. I also noticed that the wind had picked up. The swan, my daughter still aboard, drifted swiftly out.

I started swimming. I’ve been a strong swimmer since I was a kid, but I’m out of shape. I’m also dealing with a herniated cervical disc that has been a source of unrelenting pain. The bottom line: I couldn’t keep up. We already were in water over our heads.

I locked eyes with my daughter. She was doing the same math in her head, and I could see she was on the brink of panic.

“You need to jump,” I shouted. “Now! Hold onto the handle so you don’t lose the swan.”

She jumped. The swan overturned. She had grabbed its wing, not the handle.

She lost her grip, went under and came up sputtering.

“Grab it,” I shouted, knowing she’d need the swan to keep her afloat.

My son, taking this all in from the pizza slice, paddled out. He passed the slice to me and swam out to his sister. Together they hauled the swan back to the shallows.

He still insists this was not as dire as I make it out to be. He’s also not a parent.

Yet a few hours later, my daughter and I were laughing it off too, logging the incident into the family history as a comedy, not a near-tragedy.

And then, on Thursday, the news alert popped up on my phone: “Lake Erie beach closed after 2nd swimmer goes missing.”

I knew which beach right away.

The second death at Nickel Plate Beach was a 29-year-old woman who was swimming with her family July 21, the day we’d headed home. In that story, I also learned that four people had died there in 2002 as they tried to rescue a woman caught in a strong current. The beach, officials said, was prone to such currents and to strong winds.

Early on, a parent comes to know a special kind of dread that rises in a flash, with a hand pressed to a forehead that burns with fever. This dread persists for years, brought on by the thud of a baseball on flesh or the wail of sirens.

Months might pass without that punch to the gut, that lump in the throat. And then one idyllic summer day, on a beach bright with rustling umbrellas and splashing children, fear pays a visit, carried aloft on a warm summer breeze.

tdecker@dispatch.com @Theodore_decker