#Peyton Hillis Recalls ‘Scariest Point’ Saving Son, Niece from Drowning

Former NFL running back Peyton Hillis opened up about saving his son and niece from a rip current in January.

In an exclusive interview with Michael Strahan for Good Morning America, Hillis, 37, said, “It is 100% a miracle that somebody didn’t die” during the incident.

Hillis recalled wanting to take the kids to the beach because they were “all going crazy” with energy on the morning of Jan. 4.

“The night before, it was a bad storm, but you know, I didn’t really pay too much attention to it and when I woke up the next morning it was windy, but it was beautiful,” he said on the morning show.

The former NFL player told Strahan that “no flags” on the beach to deter people from swimming were visible on the morning of the incident.

In Hillis’ recount of the moments leading up to him jumping into the water, he remembers hearing his mother screaming. “I looked at her and she pointed to my son and she says, ‘Orry and [Camille] are drowning.'”

Hillis said he immediately reacted and “started running into the water.”

Hillis said “the scariest point” for him during the event was “when I’m swimming to my son and I have to pass by him because my niece is in more danger,” he said.

“I knew that I had to pass him up to get to Camille first. Because, you know, if I didn’t, then there’s no way she would’ve made it,” he continued. “And so what happened … I swam past my son, and I got to Camille, and she starts freakin’ out, you know, ‘We’re gonna die, we’re gonna die.'”

Before getting to his son, Hillis said he made sure his niece was safely on shore.

When he went back into the water for his son, Hillis said the boy was “pretty much limp” and had lost all his strength battling the 10-foot-waves. “You can’t swim and you’re holding him, you’re seeing his eyes roll back in the back of his head,” Hillis recounted.

“He didn’t have any more strength in him to swim and I’m sitting there holding him,” he added.

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Hillis recalled praying during that moment. “Lord, please. Like, I really don’t care about my life. I don’t. But if we can get him out of here that’s the only thing I’m going to care about,” Hillis said.

After the former athlete rescued both children, his lungs and kidneys began to fail and Hillis fell unconscious, he said. Shortly after, medical professionals arrived to treat the family.

His recovery kept Hillis in the intensive care unit at Pensacola’s Baptist Hospital for weeks. “I couldn’t move my body,” he recalled during the segment.

Hillis said he doubts that his lungs “will ever get back to where they needed to be,” but that his physical recovery is “coming along okay.” But the mental toll the incident took on him has been difficult to overcome.

“Mentally, things are coming along a lot slower. I’m just trying to take it one day at a time,” he said.

The former football star, who played for the Denver Broncos, Cleveland Browns, Kansas City Chiefs and New York Giants from 2008 to 2014, still closely follows the sport.

The Arkansas native released a podcast called In the Backfield, using his expert knowledge of the sport for insightful commentary. Admitting that his favorite team is the Cleveland Browns, who he played for from 2010-2011, Hillis told WKYC Channel 3 in 2020 about his love for the franchise and what it feels like “to be a Brown.”