Petty Officer 2nd Class Zac Edwards had a beautiful beach wedding ceremony.
Just moments later, he stripped down out of his wedding attire.
But it wasn’t apart of some wedding prank. Edwards was trying to save a life.
He and his wife were posing for their wedding photos when a woman approached them.
She said that a man in the water was struggling to get back to shore.
“I wasn’t going to let him drown,” Edwards told Pensacola News Journal.
Edwards ripped off his shirt and ran over to the water with a flotation device and jumped in.
According to Fox News, there were red flags on the beach and the lifeguards who were on duty were busy saving someone else.
The poor man was frantic when Edwards approached him.
“He kept saying, ‘I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe,’” Edwards said. “My goal was to keep his head out of the water.”
Edwards swam as far toward the shore as he could with the man.
However, he came to a point where he couldn’t go any further due to the current.
That’s when a lifeguard on a personal watercraft swam up and helped Edwards pull the man to store.
It wasn’t long before emergency medical services arrived to make sure the man, who was a Mississippi High School Student, was OK.
Edwards says he is extremely grateful for the work the first responders do.
“I jumped in one day; they jump in every day,” he said. “I didn’t think that the day that changed my family’s life for the better would change another family’s life for the better too.”
All Edwards could think about was his wife Cindy the entire time he was in the water.
“It beat us up pretty hard getting in and we pulled up on the beach everybody grabs him. I got up and she’s running out in her wedding dress. I’m bleeding from the nose and trying to tell her get away because I know how important that dress was and I didn’t want to ruin that,” Edwards said.
Cindy says she got a “hero and hubby in the same day.”
Edwards’ selfless act was lauded by his military superiors.
“This is another example of the dedication our members have in service to the people of their nation,” said Capt. Malcolm McLellan, the Commander of Coast Guard Sector Mobile. “It shows the true character of a Coastguardsman with a bias for action.”
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