Her first instinct
was to help

Brenda Cook, 37, says she gave up struggling in the water at John's Pass, and then someone tugged her to the surface.

[Times photo: Fred Victorin] Bob Mansperger, 30, a dock hand at Jack's Marina, turned his boat toward Brenda Cook, swept by the current at John's Pass, and helped rescue her.

By RICHARD DANIELSON

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 19, 2000

MADEIRA BEACH -- One minute, Brenda Cook was dozing on a raft off Madeira Beach. The next, she was fighting a strong current that pulled her off the raft and swept her into John's Pass.

Cook, a 37-year-old tourist from Kentucky, feared she

[Times photo] Brenda Cook of Kentucky nearly drowned but lived to attend her daughter's wedding on the beach about 100 feet from where she almost died.

would die. The current carried her past a group of fishermen on a rocky jetty and toward some bridge pilings. She heard a man yell for her to float on her back and wondered why no one threw her a line.

"It shocked me because there had to be 30 people there and . . . no one even offered to help," Cook said Tuesday, referring to July 6, the day she nearly drowned. She tried to swim to shore, but the harder she swam, the farther the current carried her.

Exhausted, Cook said she could feel herself slipping into unconsciousness. She said she never would have believed it beforehand, but she saw a bright bluish-white light, suddenly felt calm and warm and had a vision of her children and grandchildren.

"That's it," she said she thought. "I can't do no more. . . . I totally gave up."

Then she felt someone pulling her to the surface.

That someone was 29-year-old Kelly Griffin of Palm Harbor, who was on a boat heading through the pass, getting a ride to a rented water scooter that had run out of gas. She and Rob Mansperger, who lives in St. Petersburg and works as a dock hand from Jack's Marina, heard people on the jetty yelling. Mansperger wheeled the boat around after seeing Cook's head in the water.

Mansperger, 30, said Cook was in a part of the pass where "there is a wicked current with a terrible undertow, so it was definitely . . . dangerous." He also said Cook was well beyond the reach of the people on the jetty, so he understood that they could have put themselves at risk if they had gone into the water after her.

That, however, did not stop Mrs. Griffin.

First, she threw Cook her life jacket, but Cook couldn't reach it. Then, with Mansperger telling her not to do it, she jumped overboard and swam toward Cook.

"When I realized that she couldn't grab that life jacket, I knew I didn't have any choice but to go in," Mrs. Griffin said. "I couldn't stand the thought that someone might die in front of me."

Mrs. Griffin's husband, Mark, was following the boat on a personal watercraft and didn't know what was going on when the boat turned around. By the time he saw Cook, his wife was swimming toward her.

"I was amazed," said Mark Griffin, 33, who works as a retail sales manager. But he was not surprised. "It was something she would do."

Mrs. Griffin said she had no lifesaving training for water rescues, but does know CPR and first aid because she works as a phlebotomist, someone who draws blood, at a plasma center in Dunedin. She compared the rescue to a situation she might face at work: When someone begins bleeding badly, her first instinct is not to pull on a pair of sterile gloves, but to help.

Once in the water, Mrs. Griffin kept Cook afloat, and she, Mansperger and Mark Griffin lifted her into the boat.

"We didn't realize how serious a trouble she was in until we got her in the boat," Mansperger said. "She was passing in and out of consciousness."

Mark Griffin later thought that "had we not been there (and) had there not been another boat around, she would have drowned. . . . Another 15 seconds, 30 seconds, she would have been gone. I mean, she was physically spent."

On shore, Madeira Beach Fire Department paramedics soon arrived, gave Cook oxygen and took her to Palms of Pasadena Hospital. Cook, who is a licensed practical nurse, said she doesn't remember much, but she recalls how Mrs. Griffin held her hand.

"I kept hearing her tell me she was here and she was not going to leave me," Cook said in a telephone interview from her home in Somerset, Ky. "I kept hearing her say that she would go to the hospital with me if she could. I kept wondering why she would want to do that."

Mrs. Griffin said she later called the hospital to check on Cook, but couldn't find out anything because she was not family.

As it turned out, Cook checked herself out of the hospital later that day. It was against her doctor's advice, but she was determined to see her 21-year-old daughter get married on the beach that night.

"I was pretty worn out and pretty bloated from all the salt water I had taken in," she said. But her daughter "got married that night at 8 p.m. on the beach, about 100 feet from where her mother nearly lost her life."

The next day, Cook stopped by Jack's Marina to thank Mansperger and see if she could track down Mrs. Griffin. She left a picture of herself but never learned Mrs. Griffin's name until Tuesday. And she said she will contact Mrs. Griffin now.

"I will thank those people until the day I finally do lay down to rest," she said. "She was an exceptional lady. I couldn't have asked for anyone better to save my life. She was my guardian angel."

- Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report.

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