A family holding a beachside memorial service in Corolla would have had a second loss to mourn if not for the heroic act of a quick-thinking stranger.
Kerry Kane died suddenly on May 17, 2020. Her family couldn’t gather at the time because of COVID, said her sister Shannon Smith. So they held a memorial service for her at Corolla May 21st.
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Smith accompanied their father, 71-year-old Dennis Kane, into the water to release Kerry’s ashes in a biodegradable urn.
“I took a minute to stand there for a minute with my dad and I kind of got the feeling from him that he needed a minute for himself,” Smith said. “I turned around and happened to see my dad going back in.”
Dennis Kane had noticed that the urn wasn’t sinking, so he went out farther into the ocean to get it. That’s when he was suddenly caught in a dangerous rip current and carried out to sea - too far out for his family to get to him.
Smith said she hadn’t felt any pull in the water. The rip current seemingly came out of nowhere. She was panicked and shocked.
“It was like this immediate sense of, ‘Is this really happening?” Smith told WRAL News. “I lost my mom. I lost my sister. My dad is out there.”
On the shore, as family members screamed for help, Kane’s niece Molly George was calling 911 repeatedly.
“It’s just kind of that hopeless feeling where I am standing there on the shore and there’s nothing I can do,” George recalled.
Kane treaded water for 30 minutes before help arrived in the form of a kind stranger, Adam Zboyovski.
Zboyovski rents out beach chairs and umbrellas at Corolla. He just happened to be making his last collection stop of the day near the scene, when he was flagged down by Kane’s family members.
Zboyovski grabbed his surfboard and jumped in to rescue Kane.
“I got out there just as quick as I could,” Zboyovski said. “I slid off [the surfboard] one time and I thought to myself, ‘this might be a little difficult,’ but I adjusted and made it out to him.”
“I could just tell [Kane] needed help because he was lying on his back with his arms barely out of the water, head barely out and the waves were still coming and cleaning him up at that point,” he said.
When Zboyovski tried to get Kane onto the surfboard, both men fell off, but they regrouped and headed back to shore.
“As soon as [Kane] got dropped off, he couldn’t stand. We had to drag him up on the shore,” recalled George. “His color was not good. He was very washed, very pale, some were saying blue and purple because the water was freezing.”
Medics at the scene by then administered oxygen to Kane. He spent one night in the hospital for observation, but his family says he has recovered well. He even reunited with his rescuer.
Smith called Zboyovski a hero in a Facebook post that’s been shared more than a thousand times.
“People can change the course of someone’s life — an entire family’s life — in just an instant. He didn’t hesitate at all. He ran straight into water that everyone knew was dangerous,” Smith said. “We have nothing but love and eternal gratitude for what he did.”
Zboyovski is a little embarrassed by all the attention this has brought him.
“I’m happy I saved a man’s life, sure, but this is all a lot for me,” he told WRAL News. “It’s all new for me and a little strange.”