Title: WAVES OF ANGELS
Searing pain hits the center of
my chest. I can’t breathe! Is this my heart? Is this a heart attack 60
feet underwater?
“Stay calm, breathe calm”, I told myself. I breathed and the pain struck again. My eyes
searched for the dive master. I must go
up. I grabbed for Steve my dive partner because he always stays near me. We saw
the dive master 10-20 feet beneath us.
I closed my fist and pounded the center of my chest, right under my
breasts and motioned that I was in trouble and had to go up. I trusted that Steve would know what to do
as he had been scuba diving for over 30 years and he would regulate my ascent
so that my lungs would not explode by ascending too fast. I was terrified. I couldn’t breathe. I told myself to stay calm, knowing that I
must exhale as I ascend or I could burst my lungs. The pain struck again and I was afraid to
breathe through my regulator---- it hurt too much. Though this was only my fourth dive, it might
be my last. We were 5 miles from land
and diving off a small rock formation.
I can’t breathe….. I feel the panic and I remembered what I did
so very wrong in my diving class ……I commanded
myself to Focus. Just exhale
Sunni…all the way up.
A few months earlier while taking
my scuba diving training I had panicked in the pool at 14 feet down. I knocked the regulator out of my mouth and
struggled crazily toward the surface by trying to swim. I did everything wrong and I learned a very
tough lesson but, in this current moment of crisis I remembered to stay calm
and exhale to the surface and not panic.
I had to completely surrender
and trust that Steve would take care of
me.
(Steve) I saw Sunni signal that she was in trouble
and I looked into her eyes and recognized that there was something seriously
wrong. She had been diving perfectly
for about 15 minutes. She was relaxed
and we had just seen a beautifully colored eel and touched a surprising black
rock that turned out to be a sponge. I
took her arm and began the slow ascent when I saw what looked like blood begin
to fill her mask and come out of her nose.
I knew we were deeper than she had ever gone and I saw the fear in her
eyes. If this really were blood she
would be lucky to last 30 seconds when we reached surface. Blood usually means a burst lung and that
means death. We were near a rock
outcropping that we grasped for when we reached surface. It was covered with sharp coral and slippery
algae that made it difficult to hang on to.
As I saw Sunni’s face in the sunlight her lips were completely dark
blue, a sign of no oxygen. I grabbed
her mask and pulled it off. She gasped “
I can’t breathe.” I flipped her weight
belt open and let it drop to the bottom to take the pressure off her waist while trying to hang on to her because she
kept loosing consciousness. I opened her
BCD jacket. I could hear her breathing
gurgling like a person possessed. Her
lungs were full of salt water. She wasn’t having a heart attack. The regulator had malfunctioned and she had
inhaled salt water. This causes great pain and often causes vomiting. She coughed and sputtered and threw out more
blood through her nose and mouth. She
passed out. I didn’t know if she
died. I pounded on her back to get her
to cough out more fluid but, my BCD (air vest) was not holding air and I was
sinking myself. I was struggling to get
some kind of hold on this cutting and slimy rock surface as the water washed
over my face because I was sinking. My
air vest was leaking and I couldn’t stay
afloat with my weight belt on. My constant
thought was to keep her face out of the water and now I wasn’t sure if I was
going to go down with her. Exhaustion
pulled at me as a big wave hit me from behind and tore both of us off the
rock. She slammed into my chest and
luckily I had just released my weight belt so that I could float more easily
and I grabbed her to me. The undertow
sucked us down into a washing machine tumbling us under the water twice and
swished us 15-20 feet to the right. When
our heads popped out of the water we could see that we were going to be slammed
into a rock canyon. She screamed. at
least I knew she was still alive. We hit
the end of the canyon.
(Sunni) I opened my eyes just in time to see the
boulders of the rock canyon coming toward my face. I screamed. Terror hit me again….. I can’t
breathe!!! I knew that I couldn’t live through a wave pounding like this,
especially if I hit my head or broke a leg.
Slam!!!!! And then I felt myself tumbling under the water again and
being sucked back out to the sea. I knew I could die. I was paralyzed. At least the wet suit was doing a very good
job of keeping me buoyant. I couldn’t
think and I had not been able to move my arms or legs to help myself in any way
since I had surfaced. . I was terrified! As scared as I had ever been in my life. Now I could feel Steve at my back as we were
tumbling under the water and suddenly the wave reared up and spit us up onto a
rock ledge 10 feet above the waters surface.
Completely out of the water.
. Me sitting on my butt and Steve
right behind me and as the wave washed back over us it split and went around us
so that we were not pulled back into the Agean Sea..
As it receded he realized that he had perfect grasp handles for both of his
hands and a good place for his feet. I
choked on the water and spit it out and said “Honey, if I don’t make it let me
slide into the water and leave me here” I felt totally sure that if another
wave hit us I would die here and I was at peace with the thought of death. I
was scared but, ready to let go.
He shouted, “I love you and we are not leaving this
rock”. And he continued to pound on my
back and lean me to the side to cough out the liquids in my lungs. He told me “ We are safe now, I have a good
hold on these rocks”. I braced myself
for fear that another wave would wash
over us and take my life. I grabbed for him and told him that I loved him. The wave had not hit yet, I felt I only had a
moment to tell him. Another moment
passed and still no wave. We both
looked behind us and the sea had returned to perfect calm. There had been only two waves on an
otherwise perfectly calm day. Those waves
saved my life. Like the sea said,” It is
not your time just now,” and spit me high up onto the rocks where I could
rest until the dive team came to pick me up.
Steve said,” Your angels are really looking out for you’. That was your angel who threw us up on this
rock and gave me this perfect handhold” I felt myself sigh and my eyes welled
up with tears. I could feel his love and the love and protection of the angels,
and I passed out.
(Steve) Sunni always talks about her angels and how
they protect her. Well, now I believe
her. That wave had to be angels. The sea has now returned to perfectly calm
and I know she is still alive and I am just going to keep pounding on her back
to get her to release the fluid in her lungs until the dive master comes with
the boat to take us to shore. Sunni always talks about Miracles and now I believe in Miracles. Thank you,
God!
“I’m getting better every minute”
“ The doctors will be amazed at
my miraculous healing.” . I thanked God
and my angels for saving me. Now that I
finally had oxygen my mind was beginning to clear and I knew I had to focus on
a positive and desired result. I
decided that I was on holiday with 7 days left and I wanted to see Athens and the other
islands that were scheduled on my trip.
The doctor. had advised me that I should stay a week. By the next day the doctors were
amazed that I was remarkably better. I
continued to pull in the healing energy and the second day they let me go. I
had a full recovery! We left the hospital on a motorcycle and I asked Steve to
take me to the church I had seen from my hospital window because I wanted to
light candles and thank God and all my angels for the miracle of my life.
Sunni Boehme
Phone 414-482-8971
e-mail: sunniboehme@hotmail.com
Nancy Freier http://theinnervoicemagazine.com/ ... then, click on August 2013 issue and your article is on page 8! Spread the word!! 
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