Florida rescue shows Americans at their finest

Friday, July 14, 2017 | 2 a.m.

At a time when Americans sometimes seem to be at each other’s throats more than ever over politics and social issues, a story about people linking hands in Florida offers some relief.

It happened Saturday at Panama City Beach, where six members of a family and four other swimmers became caught in a riptide and were in danger of drowning.

They might have gone under if not for the quick actions of beachgoer Jessica Simmons, who grabbed a boogie board and, accompanied by her husband, helped start a human chain from the beach into the water.

“These people are not drowning today,” Simmons thought, as she told the Panama City News Herald. “It’s not happening. We’re going to get them out.”

The chain eventually grew to about 80 people and stretched about 100 yards into the water. Paddling beyond them, Simmons and her husband, Derek, reached the stranded swimmers and handed them to the people in the chain one by one so they could be passed to safety.

For Roberta Ursrey, who became stuck in the water while trying to help her two young sons, the rescue happened just in time. The group was struggling to stay afloat in water 15 feet deep.

“I’m going to die this way,” Ursrey thought to herself, she told the Post. “My family is going to die this way. I just can’t do it.”

Although law enforcement authorities were waiting on a rescue boat and a lifeguard was not stationed on the beach at the time, the Simmonses and the other rescuers got all of the swimmers out of the water.

The rescue showed a group of Americans at their best, taking quick action and selflessly helping each other. After months of a divisive presidential election and hateful political rhetoric that the president continues to provoke, it was heartening to see people coming together.

Then again, it’s easy to get focused on the divisiveness that’s plaguing the nation and forget that people help each other on a daily basis. The Panama City Beach rescue was a reminder that acts of kindness, sacrifice and sometimes even heroism happen daily.

For that, the nation owes the 80 rescuers thanks.