Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.
I have never come close to seeing a swimmer die in a marathon swim. Not even those swimmers who I personally jumped in to save (2 in Catalina Channel and 3 at FINA World Championships). Only Penny was nerve-wracking since she was stung by box jellyfish in her Oahu-to-Kauai crossing.
I have seen swimmers been taken to the hospital, but no one came as close to dying like with Diana…more than once.
And I certainly was never in fear of my own life as an escort crew member on any swim that I have been on – including with Penny Palfrey’s swim between Oahu and Kauai. People don’t realize that when you are 35 miles away from any shore – like Penny was when we took her out of the water, the situation is precarious. Diana was much further out from shore than Penny was.
I remember on crossing attempt #4, I did not think ANY of us would survive. We hit a tropical storm – and the boat started to sink. We were closer to the Bahamas than we were to Florida.
The fact that she CAME BACK after those experiences was completely gutsy in my opinion.
I had never seen 3 emergency room physicians work on a patient (e.g., Diana), let allow on a boat in the middle of a channel several hours away from any shore.
That is the scale in which Diana swam. This is one reason why I feel comments by Evan Morrison and Dan Simonelli and Daniel Slosberg are ridiculous and without merit to me. And I am willing to explain this – with documentation – to anyone.
Diana does not need to do this. She just needs to enjoy the ride that she is on. Her message – Find A Way and Onwards – resonates very well with a very wide audience. And that is why Hollywood wants to produce this story.
I agree – no one directly involved has come out and called foul. This would be the only thing I could imagine that would change ANYONE’s mind on the final swim. There are quite a few doubters with no association to MSF. As for history, I think the swim will always be tagged as controversial – inside the sport. If I were to guess…95%+ outside the sport love the story and have no reason to question it (it might be 99%+). Inside the sport the % is lower.