Driver hailed for saving tourists from rip current at Louisiana beach: ‘I just locked in’

A shuttle driver recently used his bare hands to rescue three tourists ensnared by a potentially deadly rip current off the southern Louisiana coast, actions which state officials hailed as “heroic”.In an interview published on 15 June, Reliant Shuttle driver Jordan Matthew told Guardian reporting partner Louisiana" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="28878" data-entity-type="organization">WWL Louisiana that he had just dropped off a group of tourists from Oklahoma at a beach on Grand Isle days earlier when one of them frantically flagged him down.Matthew was told a young boy had been enmeshed in a rip current, he recounted. A woman – evidently a relative of the child – then went in to try to save the boy but was pulled by the dangerous current herself, he said.And furthermore, Matthew learned, the current had caught a third member of the group as she swam nearby.Matthew recalled being able to see that “they were bobbing under, [and] the waves were crashing over their heads” at the edge of an area known as the Elmer’s Island wildlife refuge. “It was a rough sight,” he said.Despite having no formal lifeguard training, Matthew instinctively ran into the water. He initially pulled the boy and one of the women to a spot where the water was shallower – then he led them to shore.Matthew then swam out to the other woman after she had drifted farther out, grabbed her and managed to haul her back to the shore – including by carrying her over his shoulder at one point.The native of Mandeville, Louisiana, which is about 120 miles from the Elmer’s Island refuge, described his mindset at the time to WWL.“There’s this thing I call ‘absolute focus’,” Matthew remarked. “I activated that in my mind, just locked in, and went one by one [to] get them.”Beside telling those he rescued to remain calm so they didn’t “run out of energy” while struggling in the water, he said he “didn’t really have too many thoughts going”.A viral 13 June social media post from the state agency which manages the refuge was clear about the impact of Matthew’s intervention.“Thanks to Jordan’s decisive action, all three individuals made it safely out,” the post from Louisiana’s department of wildlife and fisheries said.The department’s post also extended “a big thank you to … Matthew for his quick thinking and heroic actions”.His “willingness to act in a critical moment made all the difference,” the department added. “Thank you, Jordan, for your courage, selflessness, and commitment to helping others.”Jordan said he was relieved to see the tourists who he saved were physically fine, other than being emotionally rattled. He said they invited him to dinner as a gesture of gratitude.Louisiana’s wildlife and fisheries department made it a point to quote a word of caution from Matthew about how strong tidal currents are – and how those unfamiliar with them can sometimes underestimate them.The US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) defines rip currents as narrow channels of water rapidly moving away from shores. They are involved in the deaths of about 100 people annually, and Noaa distinguishes them from riptides – which involve tidal water swiftly moving through inlets and the mouths of estuaries, embayments and harbors.If caught in a rip current, Noaa says people can get out of the situation most safely by swimming parallel to the shore and back to land at an angle – rather than directly toward it.Matthew told WWL: “If there’s calm water, there’s bound to be a rip [current].”