Mason Cunningham, then 7, left, was saved by his brother Cooper Borgerding, then 12, from a dangerous riptide current while vacationing at a beach on Tybee Island, Georgia in 2011.
Daily Journal Archive Photo
News from around Johnson County as reported on July 27 in the pages of the Daily Journal and the Franklin Evening Star from the last 111 years.
On this day in 2011, the main story on the front page of the Daily Journal was about a Greenwood teen saving his brother from being swept out to sea.
Ann Cunningham and her husband, Shane, were wading up to their ankles in the Atlantic Ocean while her sons Cooper Borgerding and Mason Cunningham had been riding a Styrofoam boogie board and diving into the waves during the family’s vacation to Tybee Island, Georgia.
However, suddenly the ocean’s current picked up. The water around Ann and Shane Cunningham rose to their hips, and the boys were pulled underwater.
Borgerding, then 12, knew exactly what to do. The teen, who had received swimming lessons from his mother, grabbed Mason Cunningham, then 7, and swam the pair to safety within two minutes.
Ann Cunningham had worked to make her kids capable swimmers. The mother of four taught her children how to swim when they were 3 to 4 years old.
The riptide — a sudden strong current that occurs when a sandbar erodes and water rushes out to see — caught the family off guard. Borgerding yelled at the adults that something was wrong. Mason Cunningham tried to shout but couldn’t.
“It just kept hitting me underwater,” Borgerding said.
“Me too,” Mason Cunningham quickly added.
Borgerding tried to follow his mother’s advice, but it was hard. Despite the difficulty, he grabbed his brother by his side. The water pushed the two apart, but Borgerding repeatedly grabbed Mason Cunningham and kept him above water.
Borgerding swam about half of the 23 yards to the shore, and Shane Cunningham brought the boys in the rest of the way.
—
Other memorable Johnson County stories from this day
2005
NSK Precision America was preparing to relocate its corporate headquarters from the Chicago suburbs to Franklin.
2002
Several local Catholic youths and some adults traveled to Canada to see a Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II.
1987
A freak accident involving a car, a train and three telephone poles in downtown Bargersville sent four people to Johnson County Memorial Hospital two days earlier.
