Chapter 11 — Summer Rescuer

In mid-July, right at the peak of the tourist season, Duong Xanh beach welcomes the largest number of visitors since the beginning of the season. The area near the Diamond Bay breakwater, although the rescue team has added a warning flag and put up a "DANGER - RESTRICTED BEACH" sign as suggested by Bach Duong, still attracts a large number of tourists because the Gold Coast Group has cleverly built an additional check-in photo area right next to the embankment area, loudly advertising on social networks as "Diamond Heaven's Gate" - a series of artificial stone steps leading to the top. embankment, where you can watch the beautiful sunset.

That afternoon, a family of tourists from the city coming down to rest - Ms. Chung Thi Mai, her husband and their five-year-old son named Tom - were walking near this area. The boy, with the natural hyperactivity of a child, ran and jumped on the stone steps, playing with the small waves licking the foot of the steps while his parents were busy taking photos of the sunset.

Thao Nhi, on duty at the nearby watchtower, kept an eye on the "Diamond Heaven's Gate" area from the beginning of the shift because she knew clearly the level of potential danger here. She saw the boy running and jumping near the water's edge, and although the distance was still within the usual safe range, her professional hunch made her unable to look away.

Just as the sun touched the horizon, creating the most brilliant sunset of the day, an unusually large wave — perhaps created by a large ship passing offshore — crashed into the stone steps with much more force than previous waves. Little boy Tom, standing on the lowest step reaching to pick up a seashell, was swept out of position by a wave, falling into the water right at the foot of the embankment - exactly the most dangerous position that Thao Nhi and Bach Duong had identified through weeks of surveying.

"My child! Save my child!" Ms. Mai's heart-wrenching scream rang out, immediately attracting the attention of the whole area.

Thao Nhi rushed out of the watchtower before the screams stopped, holding her lifebuoy tightly to her waist and pressing the emergency siren repeatedly. She ran along the sand as fast as she could, never taking her eyes off the spot where the boy had just sunk.

"All team, emergency rescue, Diamond Bay embankment area, children falling into the water!" she shouted into the radio, then without waiting for a response, rushed straight into the water from the nearest shore.

The water in this area, just as Bach Duong data warned, is terrifyingly strong. As soon as Thao Nhi jumped down, she felt the terrible pull of the reflected flow, stronger than any time she had ever experienced, even on the night of the fireworks festival. She had to muster all her strength to maintain her swimming orientation, her eyes constantly scanning for the boy's small figure among the waves.

"There it is!" She saw a tiny arm emerge from the water about twenty meters away from her, swept away by the current at a terrifying speed, much farther than any victim she had saved before in the same short period of time.

Thao Nhi swam at full speed, her muscles tensed, her lungs felt like they were about to explode because she had to swim while fighting against the current that was trying to pull her further away. She remembered every lesson, every training session, putting all the experience accumulated over eight years into each stroke.

When she approached the boy, he was almost exhausted, his face was pale, and he could only take short breaths before sinking again. Thao Nhi dived down, wrapped her arms around the small body, pulled it out of the water, keeping its head held high.

"I'm here, I'm here baby," she said, her voice shaking but still trying to remain reassuring. The boy was unresponsive, his eyes closed, his body limp in her arms — the scariest sign any rescue worker dreads.

She began to swim back to shore, but the current continued to pull them further apart, each stroke of her arms seemed to be fighting an invisible wall of water. Just as she felt her strength starting to run out, another figure appeared next to her - Anh Kiet, swimming from the other direction, immediately helped take the boy from her arms.

"I'll help the boy, you focus on swimming!" Mr. Kiet shouted loudly through the sound of the waves.

In the distance, Trong Nghi and Anh Thi were pulling a long life buoy rope from the shore, while Nhat Quynh stood on the shore coordinating, shouting instructions through a loudspeaker. The whole team coordinated like a machine that had been practiced thousands of times, but even with that perfect coordination, they still had to struggle for nearly four minutes — a frighteningly long time for an unconscious victim underwater — to get all three people into shallow water.

On shore, medical staff were waiting and immediately resuscitated the boy. The next few moments passed by breathlessly slowly, the surrounding crowd was so silent that you could clearly hear the sound of the waves crashing, only Ms. Mai's choked cry broke the silence.

Then the boy coughed, spit out a mouthful of seawater, and began to cry loudly — the most beautiful sound Thao Nhi had ever heard in her life, marking the boundary between life and death that had been crossed.

"My child, my child is alive!" Ms. Mai collapsed on the sand, hugging her son, tears mixed with sea water streaming down her face.

Thao Nhi sat down on the sand not far away, her whole body trembling violently, not just because of physical exhaustion but because of the mental shock after having directly faced her deepest fear - the fear of witnessing a life being swallowed by that water, exactly like what happened to her father eight years ago.

Bach Duong, who had just arrived at the scene when he heard the news, ran to kneel next to her, his hand on her shoulder, his voice filled with worry. "Are you okay?"

This was the first time he called her by that intimate pronoun, but in this chaotic moment, no one noticed that small but meaningful change.

"I'm fine," Thao Nhi replied, her voice still shaking. "But that water, Bach Duong, it's incredibly strong. Stronger than anything I've ever experienced."

Bach Duong nodded, his face unusually serious. "I'll re-measure right away. But I think I know why."

He pointed in the distance, where a large construction barge was moored unusually close to the revetment area, seemingly in the process of pouring more rock into the most dangerous joint area — work that continued even during peak swimming hours, despite all previous warnings.

"They're still doing construction," Thao Nhi said, her voice choked with indignation. "Even after all that happened, they kept going."

That night, when news of Tom's near drowning spread throughout town, the atmosphere at the Bai Duong lifeguard station became unprecedentedly heavy. The whole team sat around in a small meeting room, no one said much, only Trong Nghi broke the silence with a decisive decision.

"That's enough," he said, his voice low but powerful. "I will not wait for any more 'earliest time' from the district anymore. Tomorrow, I and Mr. Duong will make an official report, signed by the entire team, and send it directly to the Provincial Department of Tourism and the press if necessary. It's time to make a big deal about this."

Mr. Thi, still in shock, sat hugging her pillow in the corner of the room, her voice was soft but full of emotion. "I keep thinking about the moment the boy floated up and then sank again. If it were just ten seconds longer..." She didn't finish her sentence, just shook her head, her eyes red.

"That's why we can't wait any longer," Thao Nhi said, her voice regaining composure even though she was still soaked, temporarily wearing a raincoat from the rescue team. "I saw that line once in my life, as a child standing on the shore watching my father being carried out. I cannot let any other child, or any other family, go through that pain because of a project that refuses to admit its mistakes."

Nhat Quynh, still young in his profession but much more mature through each rescue this summer, spoke up, his voice trembling but determined. "I will sign the report. I don't care who they are or who they are related to. I entered this profession to save people, not to turn a blind eye."

Trong Nghi looked around the team, his eyes filled with both pride and sadness. "I am grateful to all of you for choosing to stand on the side of the truth, even though I know the road ahead will not be easy. But if we, who directly witness and save people every day, don't dare to speak up, then who else will dare to speak up?"

Bach Duong, sitting quietly at the corner of the table throughout the meeting, finally spoke, his voice filled with determination. "I will prepare the most complete technical report possible, accompanied by all measurement data, images, and testimony from witnesses. I will also ask the Department to send an independent inspection team to re-evaluate the entire project, not just based on my one-sided report. The more voices speaking together, the harder it will be for them to ignore."