I Almost Drowned Once

I was 5 years old and I went out with my dad to catch crawdads. We were at Bluestone Lake. The last thing my mom told me before we left was not to get my pajamas wet which wasn't a problem since we were wading. I followed my dad holding a plastic bowl and he had a net that he was catching crawdads in. It's process is called 'seining crawdads'. When he would catch them he would put them in my bowl. We were going to use them to go fishing.

We were on our way back to the camp and we were almost at the bank and the next thing I know I was under water. I remember I was not scared, I was not even aware that I was in any danger. I remember watching the crawdads float around me as they left the bowl I was carrying. I was just floating underneath the water looking around. I did not know how to swim and I didn't even realize that I needed to swim!

The next thing I know my dad is carrying me to the bank and my mom was screaming and going crazy and she grabbed me and started hugging me and checking me over. I started to cry because thought I was in trouble because I got my pajamas wet! I had no idea what had just happened to me. It turned out that she was the one who saw me go under. My dad had been leading the way because he was taking me around the deeper pools of water. My mom said I just took one wrong step and went under. My dad turned to me when my mom started to scream. He had to reach down in the water and he pulled me out by my footbecause I was upside down. I was very lucky!

We never went back to Bluestone Lake again. I have heard that alot of people have drowned in that area. After that we were never allowed near water without a life jacket - except for supervised swimming pools of course.