Ed Ved Vedraska has been an ocean lifeguard for 47 years.

He's semi-retired now and has spent his career lifeguarding and training other lifeguards.

In Southern California, where he spent most of his career, being a lifeguard comes with high stakes.

Maybe at least once a summer, you make a rescue where you absolutely positively know that person was going to drown.

And you're facing them and you see the fear of God in their eyes in the water and you strap him in that buoy and you try to calm him down and say, hey, listen, I'm here.

You're going to be okay. I'm going to get you to shore. I want you to kick for me.

Ed says once they make it to

shore, the person will usually thank him, but often he'll never see them again. But he told me a story

about a rescue that went differently afterward. Another lifeguard named John Santos saved a young

girl who was visiting from France. It was a critical rescue, and everybody knew that,

and the little girl was really shuggen up.

But the family was so touched that they wanted to know that lifeguard's name.

Normally they don't even ask us our name. We never see them again.

But they came back the next summer, and they went and found him again.

And every year after that, for something like nine years, they flew back to California to find

John Santos.

And he got to watch her grow up and grow up into a beautiful young woman and adult.

And they came back until she was 17.

It was almost like the girls' parents wanted John Santos to be able to see the difference

he'd made in that moment every year.

That idea of a life-saving moment reverberating into the future resonates with Ed.

The kid lives on.

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