Lakeland man died saving child, others from ocean, fiancée says

Mark Bryson's last act was a selfless one.

The 42-year-old Lakeland man, having already rescued two children from a hazardous rip current off Daytona Beach, swam out to rescue one more person, a family friend. He didn't make it.

"What he did is who he was," said his fiancee, Lori McElligott. "Even if it wasn't our family, if he saw anybody in danger he wouldn't have hesitated to go rescue them. You know, he helped everybody."

He and McElligott were in town celebrating their daughter's 7th birthday and the kids' summer break, and they were enjoying a day at the beach with family and friends. It was June 2.

The couple stayed at the Holiday Inn Resort Daytona Beach Oceanfront.

That Friday, Bryson was building a sandcastle with his daughter around 11 a.m. when he noticed another one of his children, and a family friend and her child caught in the water and yelling for help, McElligott said.

Bryson ran into the ocean and brought the kids back to safety and went out again to try to help the woman.

But he got caught in the rip current. Lifeguards performed CPR, but he was pronounced dead after being taken to Halifax Health Medical Center. The lifeguards rescued the woman and another man who had gone into the ocean to help.

Volusia County Beach Safety did not have a lifeguard on duty at the tower in that section of the beach at the time. County officials urge people to swim in front of manned lifeguard stations.

McElligott said there were no warnings in her hotel about the dangers of rip currents, no one told them about the Volusia County Beaches app, which reports local conditions, and she didn't see any warnings on the beach. She also said there was no way to tell if a lifeguard was simply taking a break from the tower.

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She said there should be more warnings posted along the beach.

"We didn't know there was any danger," she said. "There was nothing posted. There were no signs posted."

A hotel official didn't immediately respond to a voicemail left Thursday afternoon.

It wasn't a good weekend to go swimming. Volusia County Beach Safety made roughly 550 ocean rescues from about May 20-June 2, Beach Safety and Ocean Rescue Deputy Chief Tammy Malphurs said.

McElligott and Bryson met each other over 20 years ago.

What blossomed into a "forever" relationship between the couple started much differently. The two eventually met in high school as a result of Bryson's persistence.

"I didn't want to meet him," McElligott said. "He was the quintessential bad boy from a rough neighborhood kind of thing, and I was the suburban girl from California."

Finally, she agreed to let him call her, and they went on a couple of dates. It didn't take long before she realized he had a "heart of gold," she said.

Bryson first proposed while they were still in high school. They ended up putting it off because of life events and because they wanted a big wedding.

"We didn't need that piece of paper to tell us we were going to be together forever," she said.

They had four children together, who are now 20, 11, 7 and 4 years old.

For work Bryson remodeled homes. In his spare time he liked to work on cars, read comic books, collect watches and take trips with the family.

He was a devoted friend, the kind people called in the middle of the night for help if a pipe broke in their bathroom or their car broke down.

"I would say the biggest thing when it came to his friends: He was their biggest supporter. He was their biggest promoter," McElligott said.

Bryson was born and raised in Lakeland and endured a tough childhood, so one of his main focuses was providing a good life for his children, McElligott said.

A couple of the young children made a practice of battling for the first hug when Bryson would come home from work. Bryson would tell his work friends that was the best part of his day.

"He loved everybody, and he loved his kids so much," McElligott said.

McElligott said she wants people to know that Bryson was an amazing man.

"He would have sacrificed himself for anybody in danger. ... He was not going to let anybody die on his watch, and he didn't," she said.

A family friend has launched a GoFundMe page to help with the family's expenses. As of Friday morning, the effort had raised $6,050 of a $5,000 goal.