UNC-Wilmington head women’s basketball coach Nicole Woods is thankful for life.
On May 21, Woods took her two children, her 15-year-old and 10-month-old daughters, plus her 8-year-old niece and nephew to Wrightsville Beach in North Carolina. What seemed to be a normal day at the beach nearly turned tragic as her nephew waded into the Atlantic Ocean and got swept up in a wave. The 41-year-old coach sprang into action to rescue the child, only for a current to pull them both farther into the sea.
Before she lost consciousness, Woods pushed her nephew to the surface so he could get oxygen.
“He was panicking. We got caught in a rip current. I saw help coming. After trying to get out for several minutes, we were both tired,” Woods recalled the event while talking to local outlet WECT. “When I saw the gentleman coming, I went under the water to push my nephew to the help because I knew he couldn’t get both of us. And so me going under the water and pushing him up towards the help would make the decision for him—to save my nephew first. By then it felt like a suction cup pulling me under, and that’s the last thing I remember.”
Eventually, a rescue team came for both her and her nephew, bringing them back to shore. However, Woods had no pulse and wasn’t breathing. The rescue team shocked her with defibrillators and gave her chest compressions. After five minutes, her pulse returned, but her oldest daughter and niece watched with bated breath about her safety … and whether she’d live.
A self-described strong swimmer, Woods called her rescue a “miracle.”
“I was on a ventilator for at least a day,” she said after she was admitted to the hospital for recovery. “I couldn’t talk but I could communicate by writing words to my wife. The doctor said I was able to breathe on my own when they took me off the ventilator. It was a miracle. If this could happen to me, it could happen to anyone.”
