I am a search and rescue diver for missing people. One day I found a survivor.

Ive been a search and rescue diver for over 20 years. Most of the time we find either a body or no one at all. Its the worst when we find no one because people never get closure. <br><br>Sometimes we get calls about people going missing in the water. It could be anything - a parent looks away for a second and a kid wanders off, a boat crashes and someone falls overboard, someone is swimming and gets dragged away by a current.<br><br>In my line of work, it feels like we never get any good calls. That people just seem to drown and disappear. I was in the US Navy and then a scuba diving instructor before joining the police. I began here as a normal cop and they asked for people with scuba qualifications to join the rescue team. It's rewarding work, but you see the worst of the worst.<br><br>There’s a lake not far from where I’m based. It’s a popular spot for people to swim and boat. We got a call from a very scared and hysterical mother at around 12:30 one summer afternoon. Her 3 year old daughter had been swimming in the shallow end and while she was looking away for literally a second she was gone. <br><br>They werent sure how long the kid had actually been missing for but figured it was maybe about 15 minutes. She was described as about 3 feet tall with long curly blonde hair. She was wearing a bright pink swimsuit. <br><br>When we got there we saw a very hysterical woman beating up the life guard tower and screaming at these poor kids inside it. Apparently her husband was out looking in the woods because she was afraid her daughter had wandered off. The mother kept saying she thought her daughter was possessed by a demon.<br><br>We asked her to tell us more and she said her daughter had started hitting and scratching her and her husband for no reason, and would often wander around the neighborhood alone at night. She was saying that she thought her daughter had been taken by the devil himself. We said it was okay and left her with another cop.<br><br>My partner, who I will call Keith, and I went down to the lake and prepared to go in. It was a sunny summer day and it was pretty hot, so the conditions were pretty much ideal. We were both veterans who had been there, done that and got the t-shirt. We rolled our eyes at what the mother said but we had been doing this for a long time and had seen some strange stuff.<br><br>We entered the lake and began to swim. I began to feel my way along the bottom of the lake, searching for any human remains. The water was pretty clear and we could see all the way to the bottom, which made it easier for us. I saw a bright pink color out of the corner of my eye and reached down.<br><br>I felt curly hair and a head, then a whole body. It was the girl, and I immediately grabbed her and signaled for Keith to come closer. I looked at him and mouthed "she's alive!" and we both started to lightly swim to the surface of the lake. <br><br>We broke the surface of the water and I held her up so she could breathe. To our horror, she was not breathing. But she was also not decomposing. In fact, other than being a bit cold and wet, she looked pretty good. Keith and I exchanged confused expressions. <br><br>We signaled for some rope and when it came we tied it around her body and let the people on the shore pull her in. We swam back over and met up with the others. They asked for our assessment and we said she appeared to have been dead for a maximum of 15 minutes but somehow looked like she'd only been in the water for 15 minutes.<br><br>When we pulled her out of the water she started to cough and choke. We were all shocked and never expected this at all. The paramedics took over and performed CPR and took her down to the hospital in an ambulance. <br><br>Over the next few days we received periodic updates about the little girl. She had no injuries whatsoever and was completely unscathed. The family never pressed charges against the lifeguards and actually got them their jobs back. We were all pretty glad that the girl had made it.<br><br>About a week later we got a call about a vehicle accident. Apparently a car had gone off of a cliff and the occupants were dead. We got to the crash site and saw a car flipped over and resting against a tree. I recognized the license plate and when we looked inside we saw that it was the father of the girl we had rescued. <br><br>I don't know what he was doing driving down that road when he lived in the city, but he was dead. We figured he must have been driving home from work when he lost control and went off the cliff. I figured maybe he was still distraught about what had happened to his daughter. <br><br>A few days later we got another call about a vehicle accident. This time it was the mother. She worked about 45 minutes away from where she lived in a hospital as a nurse. Apparently she had working a double shift one day and lost control of the car, sending it into a lamp post. <br><br>This time we figured that the father dying had sent her into a depressive spiral and she was grieving. I felt terrible for this family and since the daughter had lived I figured things couldn’t get any worse. Then again, I was a search and rescue diver. I had literally seen it all.<br><br>That whole week I couldn't stop thinking about that family. I had never seen one get hit with so much tragedy. I figured we wouldn't hear from them again since both parents were dead. I hoped that the girl would grow up well with her grandparents. <br><br>About a month had passed and we hadn't heard anything from the family. Then one of the cops who had been at the lake the day we saved the girl came up to me and had a very strange look on his face. <br><br>"You won't believe what just happened," he said<br><br>"There was a report of a house fire not far from here. The grandfather and grandmother were burned to death. Their grandkids were rescued and are being placed with a foster family."<br><br>"Did they say what caused the fire?"<br><br>"One of the kids." He said<br><br>"Which one?"<br><br>"The girl you rescued from the lake. Apparently she was found trying to catch the smoke in a bottle."<br><br>The cop walked off and I was dumbfounded. I felt like I had just been punched in the chest. <br><br>My partner and I went to the foster home to do an investigation. When we got there I saw the little girl playing outside with some other kids. It was her, I am positive. She still had the curly blonde hair and when she saw me she just stared for a long time before looking away. <br><br>I asked the foster parents if anyone weird had come to the door and they said no. I told them to be careful because we werent really sure what was going on.<br><br>That night at about 3am I got a call from the foster parents, literally hysterical and screaming. They said that in the middle of the night they heard the girl screaming so they came running into her room. They said she was holding her two siblings by the throat and choking them. <br><br>Apparently she had been adopted by them already because they were childless and knew the family. I figured they were in shock and that's why they did it. <br><br>They said they fought with her and got her off of the kids and she ran out the back door. They asked me what to do and I told them to call 911 and stay in their room until people came. <br><br>When we got to the house we searched everywhere and couldn't find her anywhere. I searched the creek and even went into the lake and searched the botanical gardens. We searched for hours and found no trace of her. I told the parents to lock all their doors and windows and we left. <br><br>The next day we got a call from the foster father saying that he received a package in the mail. It was a bottle of smoke. He was going insane and begging us to do something.<br><br>We searched everywhere for her again and never found her. I still search for her to this day but have come up empty handed. The fosters moved and never told anyone where they went. <br><br>I wonder every day what she’s doing out there.<br><br>I don't know what happened to this little girl or where she is now, or even if she is a little girl. <br><br>I just hope she doesn’t still catch smoke in bottles.<br><br>***Update!*** Since this post many people have asked me about the mental state of the family. From what we could tell they were all of sound mind. I don't know what went on in their household but the mother was a nurse and the father owned his own business. The foster parents were also sane, we looked into everyone before we did anything and everyone appeared normal. <br><br>Also, the lakes and creeks in my area are swarming with animal life. I have never seen a lake so full of animals. Additionally, the lake is man-made and not old at all. <br><br>I also don't know if you have ever had someone drown and survive, but it changes them. They are different after that, and I can't explain it. It's just like people who have had extreme experiences, like combat, they see the world in a different way.