A Human Chain formed to Rescue a family from Drowning by 80 Strangers

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It was the evening of July 8, after all, peak summer season in Panama city Beach for overheated Florida tourists to cross paths with curious marine life. Then they noticed flashing lights by the boardwalk, a police truck on the sand nearly a dozen bobbing heads about 100 yards beyond the beach, crying desperately for help.

Six members of a single- four adults and two young boys- and four others swimmers had been swept away by a powerful and deceptive riptide churning below the water's surface.

"These people are not drowning today," Jessica Simmons though, she told the Panama City News Herald. "Its not happening. We're going to get them out."

Ursey remembered Simmons coaxing her to carry on.

Simmons yelled that Ursey's mother, Barbara Franz, still in the water, was having a heart attack. Simmons told the News Herald that Franz's eyes were rolling back.

At one point, the 67-year-old woman told the rescuers "to just let her go" and save themselves. Instead, Ursey's husband and nephew held Franz's body up as they struggled to keep their own heads above water.

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