Drowning Victim Reunited With Her Hero

July 10, 2008 — -- More than 30 years ago, a little girl named Nikki McFarland was saved from drowning by a stranger in a nearby boat. For years she attempted to track down the man, but was unsuccessful. This morning, three decades later and with the help of "Good Morning America," she finally got the chance to say "thank you."

Dick Becker thought he came to the studio today to hear his wife, Jo Ellen, talk about her charity work. Little did he know that he would be the centerpiece of a surprising, dramatic reunion.

"I've had a good life. I'm sure my mom and dad are very grateful," McFarland told Becker when they finally met face-to-face. "It's long overdue."

McFarland then presented Becker with a photo book of her life, a life she credits to him.

"It's just kind of an accumulation of the years in the blink of an eye," McFarland explained. "We learn life lessons that an ordinary day can turn someone into a hero."

With a finger over one of her pictures, McFarland said, "This is about the age I was when you saved me."

A Near-Fatal Accident

More than three decades ago, McFarland was on summer vacation with her family, camping and swimming on Lake Victory, outside Omaha, Neb. Playing with her sister, Kris, with a ball at the water's edge, they frolicked into the water and eventually waded out too far.

"Somebody threw the ball and it was farther out in the water," Kris McFarland said.

Nikki McFarland slipped into a deep hole, a drop-off in the water, and the water's depth began to claim her.

"It was just commotion; it was, you know, frantic little girls," said Rick Becker, Dick's son who was on a boat in the lake during the crisis.

Nikki desperately hung onto her sister, pulling her under water. But Kris broke free to scream for help and then she saw a man on a boat — Dick Becker.

"I remember a guy standing there and saying and looking, and I'm pointing, screaming. I was screaming and crying … just, you know, the whole terror of thinking your sister's gonna drown," Kris McFarland said.

The last thing Nikki remembers is seeing Becker on the boat. "He just looked at me, and I looked at him, and we just locked eyes," she said.

McFarland held her hand above water for as long as she could. "I remember raising my hand thinking that if I held my hand way up there, maybe he'll see where I went down."

Then she went under.

Becker jumped into the dark, murky lake water in his clothes and shoes.

"He was underwater with his arms, you know, out … just trying to grasp at what he might find under there. I think he had to go back under a second or maybe even a third time," said Becker's son, Rick.

Becker found McFarland in the water and brought her ashore, where she just clung tightly to him and wouldn't let him put her down.

"She did not want to let go of him at all," Rick Becker said. "She was literally scared for her life, petrified; she was very shaken, very scared, coughing water up."

After being reunited with her family, the McFarlands wrote down Becker's name and address to send a thank-you note, but they lost the paper. McFarland's school year began, and life marched on. But as she went through life, McFarland always remembered the man who saved her — a man she called her "guardian angel."

30 Years Later, It's a Wonderful Life

"He saved my life. He did. I'm very grateful," McFarland said on the set of "GMA."

"As an adult I've just been thinking back — thinking I really need to know who that guy is," she said.

Ironically, McFarland lives just a couple of miles from Becker in Lincoln, Neb. In fact, she works as a doctor's assistant at Jo Ellen Becker's eye doctor, and has even taken Jo Ellen's eye pressure, not knowing she was the wife of the man who saved her life.

Becker, who said he remembered the day well, said simply, "It was the thing to do."