I have you.
In another setting, the words would have been ordinary.
A father might say them while helping a toddler climb down from playground equipment.
While teaching a child to ride a bicycle.
While catching someone about to fall.
That is part of what makes them so powerful in Fred's story.
They were familiar words spoken in an unimaginable moment.
And then he acted on them.
His Daughters Reached Safety
With Fred, relatives and others working together, the endangered family members were moved out of the most immediate danger.
The daughters survived.
Fred did not come through the effort unharmed.
By the end of the rescue, he was exhausted.
He lost consciousness in the water.
Now the rescuer had become the person who needed saving.
Bystanders pulled him from the Gulf.
CPR was started.
People on the beach desperately tried to revive the man who, moments earlier, had been fighting to keep others alive.
Emergency responders transported him for medical treatment.
He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
Fred Pepperman was 53.
His obituary would later summarize the circumstances in an unusually direct sentence:
He died successfully saving his family from drowning.
That description avoids romanticizing what happened.
It acknowledges both halves of the event.
He died.
And his family survived.
“He Did Everything a Dad Is Supposed to Do”
After Fred's death, Julie Pepperman spoke publicly about her husband.
She was grieving, but she wanted people to understand what he had done.
“He did everything a dad is supposed to do,” she said in comments reported by local media and later picked up nationally.
She also said that without Fred, three of their daughters would likely have been lost.
For Julie, what happened was not abstract heroism.
It was an exchange she could see clearly.
Her husband was gone.
Her daughters were alive.
She also made another observation that captured why the story spread so widely.
Many fathers say they would die for their children, she said.
Fred actually faced that choice.
And he acted.
That did not mean he entered the Gulf intending to die.
Most parents who attempt rescues are trying to create an outcome in which everyone survives.
But Fred did accept an immediate risk to himself.
His children were in danger.
That was enough.
The Fourth Daughter
Fred and Julie had four daughters, not three.
That detail is sometimes lost in shortened versions of the story.
Kathryn, Mallory, Olivia and Grace made up the Pepperman family.
During the emergency, three became trapped or endangered in the water, while other family members were also involved in the rescue effort.
The tragedy therefore touched every member of the household differently.
Three daughters survived an event in which they could easily have died.
Another daughter lost her father while watching her family fight to survive.
Julie lost the man she had married nearly 28 years earlier.
And the entire family had to return home from what was supposed to be a vacation without him.
The emotional aftermath of a rescue like this can be enormously complicated.
Survival brings gratitude.
It can also bring guilt.
Why did I survive?
Could I have done something differently?
Did someone die because of me?
Julie reportedly tried to make clear to her daughters that they should not carry that burden.
Fred made his own decision.
He was their father.
And, she believed, he would have tried to save any child he saw in the same situation.
The Ocean Does Not Need to Look Dangerous
Fred's death also illustrates one of the most misunderstood facts about rip currents.
They are not necessarily accompanied by spectacularly violent waves.
A rip can exist in water that looks deceptively normal.
NOAA describes rip currents as narrow, fast-moving channels flowing from near shore toward open water.
They can move quickly enough to overpower highly capable swimmers.
According to the agency, rip currents account for the overwhelming majority of rescues performed by surf-beach lifeguards.
The National Weather Service estimates that they kill scores of people in the United States in a typical year, with some NWS educational materials citing more than 100 deaths annually.
What kills people is often exhaustion.
The current moves them away from shore.
They panic.
They try to swim directly back.
Their body burns through energy.
Eventually, they can no longer keep themselves above water.
The term “riptide,” commonly used in everyday reporting, is technically inaccurate in many such cases.
A tide is driven by gravitational changes involving the moon and sun.
A rip current is a surf-zone current created by water moving back toward deeper water after waves accumulate near shore.
The difference may sound academic.
In an emergency, understanding it can save a life.
What to Do if You Are Caught
NOAA's guidance is straightforward.
First, stay calm.
A rip current generally pulls swimmers away from shore, not beneath the water.
Do not waste all of your energy fighting directly against it.
Float or tread water if necessary.
If you can swim, try moving parallel to the beach until you are outside the narrow channel of current.
Then angle back toward the shoreline.
If you cannot escape, continue floating and signal for help.
Wave.
Shout.
Conserve energy.
The goal is not to defeat the ocean.
It is to remain alive long enough to move out of the current or be rescued.
The guidance is especially relevant to families.
Parents often teach children not to panic in emergencies.
But seeing your child carried away can instantly overwhelm that training.
Fred's story demonstrates exactly why rescuers need flotation too.
A strong adult may believe he or she can simply swim out, grab a struggling child and return.
But now the rescuer is fighting the current while supporting another person's weight.
That can turn a difficult swim into an impossible one.
If Someone Else Is in Trouble
Official safety advice may initially sound emotionally impossible.
Do not immediately swim after them.
For a parent, partner or friend, that instruction conflicts with every instinct.
But NOAA's reasoning is based on repeated tragedies.
Would-be rescuers drown.
The better response, whenever possible, is to alert a lifeguard immediately.
If there is no lifeguard, call 911.
Try to get flotation to the person in distress.
A life jacket is ideal, but other floating objects can help: a boogie board, surfboard, cooler or flotation toy.
If someone must enter the water, NOAA says they should bring flotation with them.
Even trained lifeguards typically use rescue equipment.
The Pepperman tragedy is a painful example of why.
Fred's strength helped save his children.
But in the process, the sea exhausted him.
Warning Flags Matter
South Walton uses a beach-warning flag system to communicate conditions.