By Andy Brack, editor and publisher  |  While the world marveled at the miraculous rescue of 12 Thai boys and their coach, the drowning deaths of three South Carolinians years ago haunted my thoughts.

In June 1989, three girls and a boy played in the Edisto River in Charleston County about four miles upstream of U.S. Highway 17.  It was hot.  Suddenly, three girls, all cousins, got pulled into a swift undercurrent where the 3-foot-deep water sharply dropped.  One of the girls’ father jumped in to try to save them. Two other men pulled an 11-year-old girl from the river.  The 13-year-old boy got out on his own.