"If you are the one they say, save me!”

My father, Doctor Armand Saury (1914-2010), was for a long time a firemen's doctor and trainer of lifeguards in Biarritz, southwestern France. When a swimmer in trouble, a "drowning case", was pulled out of the sea, my father was called by the firemen and started CPR in their ambulance on their way to a local clinic specialized in pulmonary diseases.

You may not know this, but one of Biarritz's top tourist attractions is the Rock of the Virgin, which has had a statue of Mary on it long before becoming a tourist attraction, owing to the local sailors’ devotion for their patron saint.

In the 1960's, my father was called during the off-season by the firemen to help resuscitate a man who had just been rescued off the Port Vieux Beach adjoining this Rock: it was the unusual behavior of a large dog, agitated and barking, which had alerted some people towards the open sea, where they saw a struggling swimmer. These local people knew the strength of the ocean, and immediately understood the swimmer would not be able to get back to shore on his own.

The firefighters began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and CPR on the beach, assisted by my father in the ambulance. If I remember correctly what my father told me, they did CPR on him for more than an hour because he had an athletic build: "He should be fine despite all this, after he starts breathing again," they said. And they were right: he survived.

This man was a German, who came back to Biarritz with his dog every year, in gratitude. Of course, he never failed to come and visit my father. He told him that, unable to return to the shore and feeling his strength diminishing, his last glance had been towards this statue of the Virgin to whom he had addressed this astonishing supplication: "I do not believe in your power (he was a Lutheran), but if you are the one they say you are, save me!"

Jacques

Personal story shared with Marie de Nazareth Association, May 2021