‘I’m not going to let you die’: Pregnant mother rescues 3 girls from drowning in Lake Michigan

Alyssa DeWitt rescued three children from First Street Beach on Lake Michigan despite being five months pregnant

A pregnant woman has been hailed as a hero after she saved three girls from drowning in Lake Michigan.

Alyssa DeWitt, who is five months pregnant with her fourth child, took her three children aged two, three and six, to a beach in the city of Manistee in Michigan on May 25.

Later that day she noticed a group of three girls swim into the lake.

“The next thing I knew the arms were waving in the water, so I kind of knew immediately that they were in trouble,” she said in a post on Facebook that has now been shared more than 1,000 times.

The mother sprang into action, pulled her own children out the water and onto the beach and ran to help.

She said:  “A group of kids were getting pulled out into the lake and slammed against the pier wall. They could barely keep their heads above water. They were literally drowning in front of my eyes and there was not one person on that side of the beach I could scream to for help. It was empty.”

Ms DeWitt called 911 but it was a “really windy day...I couldn’t hear a thing with the wind and waves so I just prayed they could hear me screaming for help.”

When she got to the pier she lay on her stomach and tried to pull them to safety amidst the crashing waves.

Alyssa DeWitt posted about on Facebook her traumatic experience rescuing three girls in lake Michigan whilst five months pregnant (Facebook/Alyssa DeWitt)

“One of those girls looked at me with so much fear in her eyes and told me she was going to die..” she wrote. “I promised her I would not let that happen. I promised her with everything I had in me.”

Eventually adrenaline kicked in.

“I just kicked it right into mama bear mode,” she later told Fox Washington DC.

“I looked at her and said: “I’m not going to let you die. I’m going to get you out of this water, I promise.””

She added: “There were a couple of times where I had gotten them partway up, and the waves would come and they would smash into us and pull them back down and we’d have to start all over.”

Emergency crews arrived as the group made it back to the beach with minor injuries.

Ms Dewitt and her baby were checked and found to be fine.

“At the end of the pier watching, my 2-year-old was pretty freaked out and he kept trying to run out onto the pier to me,” DeWitt said. “My 6-year-old would just pick him up and take him back to the sand for me. She stayed really calm. I was super proud of her.”

A couple of weeks on Ms Dewitt encouraged parents to teach water safety to their children.

In her post she wrote that it was fate that brought her to the beach.

She said: “God did his thing today, and he put me exactly where I needed to be, once again... I’m loving my babies a little harder tonight, I’m sure those parents are too. God is good.”

Underneath her post hundreds of people posted messages of praise and support.

One person called her a “brave mom/hero/angel.”