I'm swimming 15 miles to help those affected by disasters big and small. The American Red Cross and their volunteers help provide comfort, hope, and help to all of those in need of relief from disaster and emergency. Thank you for your support! A small disaster happened to me on 6/20/21.

Everything can change in just one day. Honoring my late father while attempting my first open water swim on Father’s Day 2021, hoping to begin Ironman training, I was swiftly swept out into the ocean by a rip current. I did everything, I now know, you are not supposed to do if this should happen. Yes, I went in the ocean in the early morning with no lifeguards, with my sister ashore, having as much confidence in myself as I did until I was powerfully overtaken by the ocean. I felt my legs taken out from under me as wave after wave pummeled me into disorienting panic. Goggles around my neck, gulping water and feeling like a cement block with searing chest pain, and an inability to lift my arms or kick my legs, I realized I was likely drowning. I did my best to yell between gulps of ocean water but saw nothing but the waves continue to crash over me. Somehow, I managed to see what I thought was a person in front of me as the undertow was pulling me further out. I put my head down and tried to swim forward, each time being pulled right back. I kept trying to reach her and she finally grabbed my arm and pulled me to where we could both stand and approached the shore with the crashing waves behind us. I remember seeing my sister hysterically crying, as I felt as if I was losing consciousness. I dropped to the ground, jack-hammering from the cold, not recognizing my legs that were opaque white. After some water and warming up, the trauma put me into a silent state of stillness and shock. I sat on the beach with my sister and Shannon B, who thought she heard me yell for help from the boardwalk. A day that changed everything.

My father, Thomas W. Weible, was an avid swimmer and water safety instructor with the American Red Cross. We would watch him swim parallel to the beach on trips to the ocean, just beyond where the waves broke. I had no interest in learning how to properly swim until I was 18 years old and over a weekend before I started a lifeguard training course, in 1989, he and my sister tried to teach me at the local YMCA. I went on to become a lifeguard and later used swimming to recover from numerous running injuries. I always dreamed of competing in a Ironman triathlon. Until everything changed in one day.

This is to honor him, his passion for swimming correctly, and the day everything changed.

In August of 1962, my father was the first person in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, to complete the Red Cross 50-Mile Swim at Lion’s Lake. I entered the world in August of 1971, a true Leo.

Rest in peace, Dad.