A.J. Jacobs asks: Doug Rand, Where are You?

Sounds like a cool project.

In search of Doug Rand, the man who saved my life!

A few months ago, I posted about this Gratitude Project I’m working on. I’m trying to thank a group of Good Samaritans who rescued me and my sister in Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park way back in July of 1988.

My sister and I had rented a kayak and had somehow gotten lost in one of USA’s largest parks. Two teenagers paddling cluelessly for hours in the vast bay that led to the ocean. If we’d made it to the ocean, apparently, we’d have been swept away to our deaths.

Late at night, by sheer luck, we heard a group of five men camping on the bear-infested shore. These men fed us and lent us a tent, and generally showed us over-the-top kindness that restores your faith in humanity. ​

 

When I was around 9 years old or so, I was at a pond with my babysitter and plenty of others. She went out in the water with her boyfriend and of course I followed. But I went out too far, was in water over my head , and next thing I remember was waking up on the beach.

I have no idea if anyone did anything other than deag me to the beach. Never discussed it with my parents. Just got up and walked home and posted about it here 40+ years later.

I’ve often thought of tracking down the people involved and writing about what happened.

 

I always wonder about those random people that came to my aid at various precarious moments in my life. And I've always tried to be one of those people when the opportunity presents itself.

 

The family went to Huntington Beach a lot when I was a kid. One day, when I'm 7 or 8, I was on a boogie board and got caught in a bad spot when waves broke back to sea. No matter how much I tried to paddle back toward shore, I just kept drifting further away. It was the first time I experienced panic. I was close to never being seen again. Out of the blue appeared 2 dudes (not lifeguards) who brought me back to shore. I walked back to my family and plopped onto the towel knowing my life had been saved.