Chief product manager & editor
Monitor editors were mulling over some of the major events of the day – the reported death of the Islamic State leader, Microsoft’s plan to close the Wi-Fi gap in rural America, Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer (see below) – but the gravitational pull of altruism kept bringing us back to Florida.
Six members of a single family were swept out to sea by a riptide off Panama City Beach. Four more people, trying to help, were also caught in the current.
There were no lifeguards on duty. Police were on the scene, but waiting for a rescue boat.
That’s when something remarkable happened. One by one, strangers on the beach formed a human chain stretching out into the water. First 20, then 50, then 80 people held hands, forming a line about 100-yards long, reported the Panama City News Herald. Some couldn’t swim themselves but stood there up to their necks in water. All 10 swimmers were saved.
That Florida beach was a portrait of collaboration, compassion, and selflessness – times 80. No gender or racial divides: It was just people, linking arms, helping people.