During a recent excursion to a Florida beach, Air Force 1st Lt. Micah Grissom was planning to spend the day enjoying the sand and surf with his wife. Instead, the Parker native quickly became involved in a joint effort to save the life of a drowning woman.

Grissom, currently stationed at Eglin Air Force Base in the western Florida panhandle, had initially planned to drive with his wife, Lydia, to a beach in Destin. But as they approached Princess Beach, they saw a few open parking spaces, so they decided to stop there.

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“We unloaded the car, found a nice spot on the beach, and were just sitting our stuff down when we saw a lot of commotion near the water,” said Grissom, a graduate of Valor Christian High School in Highlands Ranch. “People were looking toward the water, and they seemed panicked.”

When Grissom looked toward the water, he saw “three heads bobbing up and down” about 30 yards from shore, he said.

“It was a double red-flag day, which meant the water was supposed to be closed to the public,” he said. “But someone was out there, in distress. I decided to go check it out.”

A graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y., Grissom has had extensive training in aquatic survival and rescue. When he entered the water, the strong rip current allowed him to get to the distressed swimmers quickly, but even as he swam, he knew that getting back to shore would be a challenge.

When he reached the swimmers, he saw that two men were trying to assist a semiconscious woman.

“I asked them, ‘Hey, are y’all OK?’” Grissom said. “They said, ‘No, we’re not. Can you please take this lady ashore?’”

The men, one of whom was the woman’s boyfriend, handed the female swimmer off to Grissom, who turned to face the rip current.

“(The woman) had swallowed a bunch of water,” he said. “It was an overall terrible situation.”

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Grissom, an avid scuba diver and snorkeler, quickly realized that he wouldn’t be able to take the woman ashore using a conventional side stroke.

“It’s hard enough for one person to swim against a rip current,” he said. “Trying to tow a person against it … it’s nearly impossible.”

With waves crashing overhead, unable to reach the ground with his feet, Grissom decided to take a different tack.

“I used the waves to my advantage,” he said. “I just kept throwing her forward with the waves, then swimming up and catching her.”

As a worried Lydia watched from the shore, Grissom continued the slow, laborious process, tossing the woman, swimming to catch up, then repeating until his feet could finally touch the sand. Then he carried the woman until a bystander came and relieved him.

Soon after reaching shore, the swimmer coughed up most of the water she had swallowed and began taking deeper breaths, Grissom said. First responders arrived shortly thereafter.

As the adrenaline from the rescue began to ebb, Grissom realized that he was exhausted.

“It was difficult, and physically taxing,” Grissom said. “There were moments when I wondered if we were going to make it.”

Grissom said the beach rescue was a team effort, with each person playing a vital role.

“It wasn’t just Micah Grissom showing up to save the day,” he said. “The other two swimmers initially kept her afloat until I got there. Someone took her from me when I got to shore. They all deserve credit.”

Grissom, a Christian, said he believes he and the other swimmers were the recipients of divine aid that day.

“I’m a firm believer that God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things,” he said. “I think God put me at the right place, at the right time.”

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