What do you do when someone you love, maybe the person you love most in the world, is in trouble—even drowning? Do you jump in to save them? Will you be able to bring both of you back to shore?

One night, Virginia Eubanks received the kind of news we all fear. Her beloved partner had been brutally beaten, just steps from their house.

Virginia jumped into the water.

She dived into the responsibilities of being a primary caregiver. In the weeks, months, and years that followed, she and her partner struggled to stay afloat in the sea of tasks required to keep them both safe and alive despite wave upon wave of setbacks: police disinterest, suspended health insurance, inadequate medical care, lost income, lost friends, endless paperwork, and, for J, a serious case of post-traumatic stress disorder. Then, Virginia herself developed what is known as collateral PTSD, a condition common among caregivers but rarely discussed.

Virginia looked for help.

She turned to reliable sources for survival tips: scientists, therapists, trauma theorists, social movements. But it wasn’t until she happened on an old lifesaving manual that she found advice that actually helped. Inspired by its lessons, she signed up for instruction in wilderness first aid, kayak self-rescue, Winter Survival 101, map and compass use, bushwhacking, lifeguarding. She went out in search of other people’s stories and of experts, interviewing everyone from neuroscientists to forest rangers. She gathered skills and knowledge that made her feel strong, competent, more prepared for the challenges ahead.

As disarmingly funny as it is quietly wise, A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving is the story—heart-wrenching and all too relatable—of how one woman tried to save her beloved and learned that she would also have to save herself. It is a moving, hopeful love story about two people
caught in their own kind of wilderness, trying not just to survive but to truly care for each other. Built from
cataclysmic loss and tenacious love, A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving challenges readers to reconsider the ways in which we tend our loved ones and ourselves, and it reminds us: no one survives the wilderness alone.