My good friend is a highly experienced waterman and lifeguard and said the same thing, that even he wouldn’t attempt a rescue without a flotation device unless he outweighed/overpowered them by a LARGE margin. He was basically saying he’d let someone like me drown but would save a kid or a woman <140lbs. He said if you do find yourself in that situation then dive DOWN and they’ll let go, someone drowning doesn’t want to go deeper they want to stay on the surface.

I was cliff diving in hawaii with a friend and his teenager just a few months ago, his kid started seriously struggling on the swim back in and needed help… That advice above kept going through my head as I approached him. He’s 16 years old but plays football and is pretty fucking strong for a kid, probably a solid 170lbs+, Thankfully he wasn’t in full panic mode yet and he listened to me while I put him in an assisted backfloat to rest while I swam him in… But if he had panicked and grabbed me I was fully ready to dive down and swim away. I don’t know if I would’ve just let him drown as I don’t think I could live with the guilt just watching from a short distance, but fuck what else can you do?? Just glad he worked with me and didn’t fight me and I didn’t have to make that decision.