Fiona Cantorna recently happened to be in the right place at the exact right time.<\/p>\n
The graduate student was out for a run along the Chicago lakefront when she heard a voice from the water, screaming for help. She didn’t hesitate and jumped in.<\/p>\n
Guy Fuller was desperately waiving for help last Thursday; his friend was in the water, fighting to stay afloat in Lake Michigan.<\/p>\n
“When the police can\u2019t help you with something like this, there\u2019s a part of you that says jump in. The heart says jump in. The mind says you can\u2019t do it,” Fuller said. “I still have flashbacks, watching the near-drowning.”<\/p>\n
Officers were already there, but no flotation device was in sight.<\/p>\n
Seconds felt like hours as the woman struggled in the freezing water. That’s when Cantorna came running by.<\/p>\n
Without thinking twice she jumped in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw that she was drowning, and I knew that ok, this is what you have to do to save this person, and I think that my rational side took over, and I think, I think it was that switch,” she said.<\/p>\n
A former competitive swimmer and one-time lifeguard, Cantorna said instinct took over, and her training kicked in.<\/p>\n
There was no time for second thoughts; she knew exactly what she had to do. <\/p>\n
\u201cI just didn\u2019t think. I think I honestly went on autopilot,” she said. “There was a lot of adrenaline in that moment. It was cold, but I didn\u2019t necessarily feel it, I guess.”<\/p>\n
After pulling the woman to safety, Cantorna warmed up in the back of a police car.<\/p>\n
For Fuller, who has known the woman since she was a child, watching a stranger risk everything to save her has restored his faith in people.<\/p>\n
“This was divine intervention, no question about it, and it just restores your faith in humanity,” he said. “We hear so many bad stories, to hear a story like this really restores your faith in mankind, and I am just so thankful for Fiona and so appreciative of her.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fiona Cantorna recently happened to be in the right place at the exact right time. The graduate student…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":790354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5462,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-790353","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-chicago-news","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116559886904407007","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}