LeRoy Colombo Saved 907 Lives!

It's Deaf Hero Day!! Since summer is almost over, I chose LeRoy Colombo, the greatest lifeguard who ever lived! He was born Dec. 23, 1905 in Galveston, TX and died July 12, 1974. Sorry I don't have an actual picture of him, though I found one in a book. I have looked and looked on-line. I found the coolest thing though. There's a traveling deaf wax museum with deaf heroes and he's one of them. http://tinyurl.com/ywksr2 When Colombo was seven, he became sick with spinal meningitis and nearly died.

Afterwards, he was left paralyzed and deaf. His older brothers helped him to regain some feeling in his legs by playing with him in an alley near his home. Soon he discovered swimming. He felt more comfortable in the water than on land, so he began spending all his free time swimming. Eventually he started winning swim competitions and marathons. He qualified as a lifeguard by swimming continuously for three hours.

He worked for forty years as a lifeguard and continued to swim in competitions throughout his life, for which he received numerous awards. But the most important thing he accomplished by far was to save a whopping 907 lives! He was formerly listed in the Guinness Book of World Records when lifeguarding was a category.

This is a sunset on Galveston Bay where he swam.