After years of displaying the kind of athleticism usually reserved for Olympians, Peyton Hillis displayed another kind of strength Monday as the featured speaker for the Little Rock Touchdown Club.
As he had previously done for Good Morning, America earlier this year, Hillis, visibly emotional, recounted the events of a near-fatal incident off a Florida beach this past January.
Hillis rescued his son and niece from a riptide before passing out as he was being helped back to shore. Emergency personnel on the scene restored his breathing, but Hillis spent almost three weeks on a ventilator in a Pensacola ICU and the story went viral.
Hillis, who lives in Springdale, had long since been a household name in Arkansas as a running back for the Razorbacks under Houston Nutt in the mid-2000s. Alongside Felix Jones and Darren McFadden, he made up one-third of the greatest rushing trio ever to play for the Hogs. A seventh round draft pick of the Denver Broncos, Hillis, at 6-1 and 245 pounds, made a name for himself in the NFL as an old-school fullback type who run like a tailback, catch passes and even hurdle would-be tacklers.
His breakout year came as a Cleveland Brown in 2010, when injuries thrust Hillis into the starting running back role. He responded by rushing for 1,177 yards and 11 touchdowns, with 61 receptions for 477 yards and two more scores. Images and footage of Hillis careening through defensive lines and hurdling defensive backs became the stuff of ESPN SportsCenter highlights. In the spring of 2011, Hillis was voted by fans — over the likes of superstars Aaron Rodgers and Michael Vick — to be on the cover of EA Sports’ Madden NFL ’12 video game, which at the time represented the most iconic placement in all of sports.
The image of the Browns’ blue-collar bruiser from Arkansas was everywhere. At Conway High School and then in Fayetteville, Hillis was known for the work ethic that oozed from the Madden cover. A video of Hillis as a high school sophomore strapped to and pulling a pick up truck went viral. But Hillis told Bazzel that no hardship he had ever endured compared to that early January morning in Florida.
The hardest part of the ordeal wasn’t wondering if he was going to survive. The most difficult aspect of the experience was needing to pass up his son because his brother’s daughter was further out.
“Swimming past my son was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Hillis said through tears.
When it all went down, Hillis said he was building sand castles with nephews. His son and niece were in the water when the riptide caught them, taking them about 15 to 20 yards out. Alerted to trouble by a scream only a parent would recognize, he said, he was in the water immediately. Once he got to his panicking niece, Hillis assured her that she wasn’t going to die. In a moment, Hillis’ sister and another man arrived with a boogie board. His niece on her way back to the beach, Hillis went for his son, still struggling in the riptide. When he got to him, “his eyes were rolled back,” Hillis said.
“I’m sitting there, holding him, stuck in the middle of the water; I couldn’t move.”
Hillis said he and his son were were caught in the riptide for eight to 10 minutes, struggling to get a breath when the tide came in before “11- to 12-foot waves” rolled in to repeat the process.
“I didn’t know it, but I was taking in a lot of water,” Hillis said. “I was taking in so much water because of the waves rolling in.”
Help arrived, and with his son on the way to safety, Hillis said he could feel everything start to slow down as his sister tried to help him out of the water. His last thought was thinking that he wasn’t going to make it. A visibly shaken Hillis told Bazzel and a Touchdown Club capacity crowd that he prayed, “Yahweh, please save my son,” before blacking out.
The next thing he remembers, after 12 days in the hospital, was waking to see family members and hearing his mother assure him that both kids were OK.
“That was the worst part for me, not knowing if they had made it,” he said.
Hillis once again refused to accept the hero label, this time offered by Bazzel.
“It’s not a ‘hero,'” Hillis said of his actions. “There’s so many fathers in this room who would’ve done the same thing.”
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