Nicole Grayson, a 43-year-old hospice nurse and mother of six, died Saturday evening after jumping into the St. Johns River to rescue her 4-year-old son, spending every ounce of strength she had to keep the boy above water until a passing boater pulled him to safety.
Grayson’s son had fallen into the river at Ed Stone Park, west of DeLand, Florida, around 4 p.m. after dropping a toy over a wooden fence along the water’s edge and trying to retrieve it. She went in after him without hesitation. Six hours later, she was dead in an intensive care unit.
The boy survived unharmed. His mother did not.
The Volusia Sheriff’s Office provided a detailed account of the sequence. The child slipped into the St. Johns River while reaching for the object he had dropped. Grayson jumped in immediately. An unidentified witness on shore flagged down a boater passing through the area. That boater threw two life preservers toward Grayson and her son.
But Grayson was already fading. She had used everything she had to hold the 4-year-old above the surface.
Jon Reaka, a bystander at the park, told FOX 35 what he saw:
“She spent all her energy trying to get her kid up over the edge.”
The boater maneuvered close enough to pull the child aboard. By then, Grayson had slipped beneath the water. Reaka acted fast. He jumped a railing, leaped onto the boat, and hauled Grayson out of the river. She was unresponsive.
Reaka described his efforts to FOX 35:
“I jumped over the rail, jumped onto the boat and pulled the lady up onto the boat and, you know, we started CPR, I started CPR and mouth-to-mouth immediately.”
Emergency medical personnel arrived at Ed Stone Park shortly after and took over lifesaving measures. Grayson was rushed to a hospital, where doctors worked for hours to revive her. She died in the ICU around 10 p.m. Saturday.
Audio of the 911 call, obtained by FOX 35, captured the raw desperation at the scene. A caller said:
“Hey 911, can you come to Ed Stone Park? We have a mother that’s drowned, and we got the baby, but we can’t get the mama.”
Grayson left behind six children. Her oldest son, 17-year-old Dafino Devega, spoke to FOX 35 about what he believes happened. His younger brother had been playing near the fence when the toy went over.
“My guess is he was trying to get it. He slipped in the water, deep, he slipped away in the water. And then my mom, I guess she panicked, and she went in the water and tried to save him.”
Devega did not hesitate when asked what kind of mother Nicole Grayson was.
“That’s the type of mom that she was; she was a hero.”
He added: “My mom, she was a strong woman. She would do anything to keep her kids safe.”
Grayson’s 9-year-old son, Koron, told the New York Post: “She saved my little brother, but she didn’t worry about herself. She worried about my little brother.”
That line from a 9-year-old says more than any eulogy could.
The identity of the boater who pulled the 4-year-old to safety has been reported as Marc Swartz, though the Volusia Sheriff’s Office statement did not name him. The unidentified witness who flagged Swartz down also remains unnamed. These were ordinary people who saw a crisis and moved toward it, not away.
Reaka, who performed CPR on Grayson aboard the boat, was visibly shaken in his interview with FOX 35.
“I tried everything I could do to save her. You know, I feel horrible. I mean, it’s so sad what happened.”
No one at that park failed Nicole Grayson. A stranger waved down a boat. A boater threw life preservers and pulled a child from the water. A bystander jumped a railing and tried to breathe life back into a woman he had never met. Paramedics arrived and fought for hours. The river took her anyway.
Tragedies like this one, where rescuers leap into dangerous water to save others, are not as rare as most Americans assume. The instinct to save someone you love, or even someone you don’t know, can override every survival calculation the brain makes.
Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood issued a public statement after Grayson’s death. The sheriff’s office thanked “all who jumped in to help with the rescue” and offered “deepest condolences to Ms. Grayson’s family and friends for their loss of a mother who gave her life to save her son.”
Chitwood said Grayson would be remembered as a hero, “not just because of her final heroic act, but because she was a mom who would do anything for her kids.”
That distinction matters. Heroism is not just a single moment. It is a pattern. Grayson worked as a hospice nurse, a job that requires showing up for people in their worst hours, day after day, for modest pay. She raised six children. When one of them fell into a river, she did not stand on the bank and wait for someone else to act.
A similar spirit was on display recently when a former MMA fighter died rescuing four girls from a deadly current at one of the world’s deepest lakes. These stories share a common thread: people who act before calculating risk, and who pay the ultimate price so someone else can live.
Several questions remain open. The Volusia Sheriff’s Office has not disclosed whether any formal investigation or review has been opened into the conditions at Ed Stone Park. It is unclear whether the wooden fence along the river’s edge meets current park safety standards, or whether signage warned visitors about the river’s depth or current at that location.
The specific depth and condition of the St. Johns River at the point where the child fell have not been publicly reported. The name of the hospital where Grayson was treated has not been released.
A GoFundMe page for Grayson’s family appears to exist, based on images sourced from the platform, though details about the campaign’s goal or total raised were not included in available reporting. Six children, including a 4-year-old and a 9-year-old, now face life without their mother.
Water-related tragedies have claimed lives across the country in recent weeks. A boat capsizing near Alcatraz killed a 79-year-old former deputy and left three others missing. Each incident is a reminder that water, rivers, lakes, open ocean, does not negotiate.
Devega told the New York Post that his mother “would have done that for any of her kids, and we would have done the same for her.”
Drowning deaths rarely make national headlines for long. They lack the political charge that keeps stories in rotation. But Nicole Grayson’s death deserves to be remembered, not because it is unusual for a mother to sacrifice everything for her child, but because it is exactly what we should expect from a society that still honors that kind of love.
The country produces no shortage of people willing to lecture others about courage from behind a microphone. Nicole Grayson jumped into a river.
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