Roanoke County police officer, firefighter honored for valor

It was supposed to be the kickoff to a long relaxing vacation at the beach.

Roanoke County police Officer Eric Austin and his friend of many years, Roanoke County firefighter Barry Brown, took a trip with their wives, Jill Austin and Lauren Brown, to Holden Beach, N.C., over the Fourth of July holiday.

The weather was rough for most of the Southeast that week, and the two rescue workers heard repeated alerts about the heavy rip currents in the ocean, which can turn calm waters into a churning, choppy danger for swimmers.

The foursome as well as the Austins’ two children had just nestled under an umbrella in the sand about 5 p.m. when Eric Austin noticed something odd on the mostly empty beach : a woman running toward the water with a book in her hand. He saw her throw it aside as she jumped into the ocean.

Austin realized something was wrong. He looked 200 yards out into the ocean and there was a boy, about 8 or 9 years old, caught in the current going farther out.

“You could tell she was trying to scream, but it was so loud, you couldn’t hear anything,” he said.

Austin immediately went to help. Brown was half-asleep when he saw his friend get up toward the water.

“It wasn’t without hesitation,” Austin said. “I knew if I went, he was coming too. It’s one of those things, it just goes back with the training, you don’t let your buddy go into a burning building by themselves.”

Austin and Brown dived in the water and were also swept up by the current. Brown, an experienced swimmer, made it to the boy first. The woman — the boy’s mother — had reached him by that point and was hysterical, nearly drowning both of them, the men said. Brown grabbed the boy from her and hoisted him above his head. They were still about 200 yards out, but he tried to be calm.

“Don’t panic in the current, just go with it,” he told himself.

As the current took him, Brown kicked with his legs and pushed his head out of the water to take in precious gulps of air as he moved sideways , farther from the land.

“They tell you not to panic, to just go with it,” he said. “But feeling it, I can tell where people panic and fight it. You are already way out in the ocean and then you are being pulled further.”

After a few minutes, waves caused a break in the rip current and Brown was able to swim to shore. By that time, his wife, Lauren, was at the water’s edge watching with Jill Austin. As soon as Brown hit land, he looked at his wife and said he thought he, Eric Austin, the woman and the boy could have died. That is when the enormousness of the situation began to settle on the minds of everyone involved.

“That was the first time in my life I was ever going to drown,” Austin said.

At 5 feet 9 inches, Austin was able to get the woman, who was about 5 feet 4 inches and 120 pounds, underneath his arm. In a panic, she began to climb on the police officer in the water, pulling them both down, Austin said.

His training kicked in as well, and he told the woman to calm down and assured her they were going to get out of the water that was taking them away from the shoreline. Eventually they were able to swim parallel to the current and get a break from the waves to make it back on land.

The entire ordeal lasted only 10 minutes, but they were long ones.

“It was unsettling, watching your loved ones out there,” said Lauren Brown .

The mother and son thanked the two men for coming to their rescue. Austin and Brown don’t even remember their names now. “We never thought any of this was going to get back here,” Austin said.

Brown later called his battalion chief and casually talked about the water rescue . From there the news spread by word of mouth in both departments and eventually reached the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors.

On Tuesday, Brown and Austin were honored by the supervisors at their regular meeting.

“You didn’t have your uniforms on in North Carolina, but the premise is still the same,” Supervisor Butch Church told them. “You did what you were taught to do. You saved the most precious commodity we have — and that’s a life.”

“We didn’t even think about it,” Brown said nonchalantly. “They needed help — boom, we went. I didn’t swim out there thinking anything but to bring them in.”

“I’d like to think that anyone would’ve gone out there to save that child,” Austin said.

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