‘A real-life angel’: Wife of Ryan Jennings, Man who died saving their kids from rip current, shares heartfelt tribute
By Jacob Murphy
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NORTH YARMOUTH, Maine (WMTW) — The wife of the Maine man who died saving his children from a rip current at a Florida beach last week has shared their family’s story in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
Ryan Jennings lived in North Yarmouth with his pregnant wife, Emily, and three children. Palm Beach County Fire Rescue said Ocean Rescue lifeguards conducted a water rescue near Juno Beach during the afternoon of April 1. Officials said the lifeguards brought four people to shore and that conditions were consistent with the potential for rip currents.
“Of course, Ryan left this world in a heroic way. There was no other way for a real-life angel like him to go,” Emily Jennings said in the Facebook post.
Emily Jennings went on to share how she met her husband and how they fell in love and started a family together.
“The love in our family was intense. Ryan and I were dynamite — we never stopped choosing each other. We were lovers in every sense of the word,” she said in the post. “He’d constantly harass me in every way you’d want to be wanted. Strangers would often comment on how engaged he was as a father — always listening, always playing, always loving.”
Family friends said Ryan Jennings was deeply involved in the Yarmouth community, including through coaching his son in football and wrestling.
Emily Jennings said that years before she met Ryan, his pancreas ruptured, causing him to be revived nine different times and spend months in a medical coma. During his recovery, Ryan Jennings was prescribed painkillers and spent years in addiction. That was what led him to work in the field to help people struggling with addiction.
“He saved so many lives. I’ve been inundated with thousands of messages from people who say they wouldn’t have the job, the family, or the life they have today if Ryan hadn’t impacted them. He left people better than he found them,” Emily Jennings said in the Facebook post.
“I’ve never been someone who thought much about life beyond this one. But what I know now is this: 26 years ago, on April 1st, Ryan was brought back as a walking angel on this earth — and you could see it in those sky-blue eyes. And on April 1st, 26 years later, he left this world in the same selfless, heroic way he lived in it,” his wife added.
Ryan Jennings leaves behind his stepson Jax, his daughters Charlie and Bowie, and a fourth child his wife is carrying.
Emily Jennings has made the full letter public on her Facebook page. A GoFundMe page has been set up to help support the family.
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