Ex-NFL star says ‘100% a miracle’ he saved son and niece from drowning

Former NFL running back Peyton Hillis has said it was “100% a miracle” everyone survived when he saved his son and niece from drowning but ended up hospitalized himself.

Hillis opened up about the near-death experience in an interview with fellow former NFL player Michael Strahan on the talkshow Good Morning America.

Hillis was on a family vacation in Pensacola, Florida, on 4 January when his nine-year-old son and eight-year-old niece were sucked into a powerful rip current. He heard his mother start screaming and leaped into the water to rescue the children after not seeing any lifeguards.

“I didn’t even think,” Hillis said. “I just reacted and started running toward the water.”

Hillis recalled having to make the difficult to choice of who to save first.

“I think the scariest point to me was when I’m swimming toward my son, but I had to pass by him because my niece is in more danger,” Hillis said.

When he saw his niece safely being returned to shore on a boogie board with Hillis’s sister, he went back for his son.

“By the time I got to him, he was pretty much limp,” Hillis said. “He didn’t have any more strength in him to swim.”

After Hillis managed to get his son back to shore, he fainted. Emergency medical technicians performed rescue methods Hillis and his sister side by side.

Hillis was suffering from kidney and lung failure from the ordeal, which led to a two-week hospital stay in intensive care.

He was sedated for 10 days and placed on a machine to help him breathe. Hillis told Strahan he remembered the strange experience of being able to hear conversations around him while he was unconscious.

Hillis said a valuable lesson he learned that day was that “you’ve got to respect the water”.

“You’ve got to always be