my family and my brother's friend went to the beach one day. I had just learned to swim and was like 9 years old.
There was this floating raft thing anchored to the bottom of the lake, and we had this inflatable paddle board (sup board i think it's called) my brother and his friend took the sup board and went to the raft. I wasn't confident enough in my swimming skills to swim there on my own, so after they had gotten there, my brother came to pick me up and bring me there on the sup board. Naturally, they started trying to push each other into the water. My brother made an escape on the sup board, and my 9 year old brain decided it would be a good idea to jump in and try to catch up to get a ride back to land. his friend thought it would be a good idea to follow him to tip him over. He succeeded, and my brother dropped the paddle in the water. I grabbed it, and tried to swim back to land, but I had made it super hard for myself and people on land could see me struggling, and my parent were shouting at me to leave the paddle. I refused, and when i got back to land, i was absolutely exhausted. I just lay face flat in the sand, and couldn't get up.
I can't imagine why, but almost drowning was really embarrassing for me.
