Jesse Hutch Credits Jesus for Surviving Drowning Accident, Stating It’s ‘A Miracle I’m Alive’
- Michael Foust Crosswalk Headlines Contributor
- Updated Jun 20, 2024
Actor Jesse Hutch is well-known for his roles in romantic comedies and superhero series, but he says a whitewater rafting accident years ago nearly ended his life before he discovered his hidden talent. And he credits Jesus for sparing him. Hutch has starred in numerous rom-coms, including the Great American Family 2023 film Blessings of Christmas, as well as superhero projects like Batwoman and Arrow. More than two decades ago, though, he was a whitewater raft guide living in his native country of Canada, trying to find his way in life.
“That was the last job that I was really leaning into right before I had this opportunity to pursue acting,” he said in an interview with the Jesus Calling Podcast.
He had been working as a guide for five years when he nearly drowned on the job. The incident started when the raft hit a rapid, sending two guests overboard. One of them grabbed Hutch’s jacket and pulled him overboard, too.
“I hit the water, I’m upside down, left, right and all the directions,” he said. “And all of a sudden, my ears just kind of pop, and I’m like, ‘Whoa, that hurt. That was new.’ I must have gone down further than I anticipated. And then I open my eyes, I look around, and for sure I’m like, Yeah, this must be the green room. Okay, I’ve heard of this place. Don’t panic. Stay calm. Just remember your training, right?”
Hutch had been thrown overboard many times on the job. This time, though, was different.
“I sort of attempt to swim again, and the currents just… it’s too strong; it’s moving me along. So I know at this point I need to just ride it out because you can’t beat the river. So I simply go limp, and by that, I mean you stop using any energy for anything. You let your arms go, you let your legs go, and you don’t use any of your energy to try and be in control or anything. You just sort of float along. And that way, hopefully, whatever oxygen is in your bloodstream. … I knew that I needed to hang on to everything I had.”
Eventually, Hutch felt the uncontrollable urge to breathe.
“You reach a point when your body starts to do what it was made to do, which is breathe,” he told the podcast. “Logically, you’re still in control of your muscles at that point. And you’re going, ‘No, you can’t breathe underwater.’ And you could feel your body arguing with you going, ‘Okay, we need oxygen now.’ You’re like, ‘Yeah, yeah, but I don’t have any. We’re underwater.’ And your body said, ‘Yeah, that’s cool, but we’re going to breathe now.’ You’re like, ‘No, we’re not.’ And I don’t know how long that battle lasted in my mind, to be honest. But it felt like quite a while.
“And then, eventually, I lost the battle. And when people drink water, that is not the same feeling as breathing water. If you’ve ever seen concrete when it’s wet, it feels like that has been poured into your nose and mouth at lightning speed and it fills your entire body. And so you immediately feel full, you feel heavy, and you feel like you weigh like 2,000 pounds. That was kind of the freakiest point along this journey so far, where I was like, ‘Wow, I am done. I don’t have anything left.’”
Hutch knew his life was in God’s hands.
“At that point, I just went, ‘Okay, God, you know what? This is the point where I just need to lean into You and have the most peace I can have. I’m in Your hands. I’m completely under Your control.’ Eventually, I floated to the surface.”
Observers said he was underwater “anywhere from 11 to 22 minutes,” Hutch said. He was resuscitated.
“And somehow, I remember people hitting my chest,” he told the Jesus Calling Podcast. “And then I remember seeing some kind of vehicle. And then I remember waking up in a pressure chamber which is inside a hospital. They slowly bring you back to the proper pressure within your head because, basically, I went down too fast and came up too fast. I still had some issues going on, so just the fact that I’m alive is a miracle. The fact that I can talk, walk, and think, I mean, I’m an actor. My job relies entirely on me being able to speak and think and listen and operate. And so it really is a miracle that I’m alive, and I owe all that to God.”
God carried him then, and Hutch says God continues to carry him today. He is married and has three children.
“We’ve heard of that story in the Bible where the big storm’s coming in, and everybody’s freaking out. They look over Jesus, asleep in the boat,” Hutch said. “Well, if your eyes are on Jesus, you know He’s asleep in the boat, and you know He’s asleep because He’s at peace. If you look at the storm, of course, you start freaking out because your peace is gone. That’s how I view my marriage through that lens. How do we raise our children? How do you handle finances? How do you handle your community, friends, strangers, your work? I mean, the list goes on, basically everything in life.”
Photo Credit: ©Facebook/Jesse Hutch
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
