{"id":569441,"date":"2026-04-07T08:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T08:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/569441\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T08:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T08:31:09","slug":"ryan-jennings-beloved-coach-and-father-from-maine-drowns-saving-children-from-rip-current-off-juno-beach-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/569441\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Jennings, beloved coach and father from Maine, drowns saving children from rip current off Juno Beach, Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

JUNO BEACH, Fla. — Ryan Jennings, a beloved coach and father from Maine, died while rescuing his children from rip currents during a family vacation in South Florida.<\/p>\n

Geraldine Ollila, a family friend, described the Jennings family as an ideal family.<\/p>\n

“Truly, if there is a love story to be told, an ideal family that we all look up to, to emulate, to be like, it is the Jennings family,” Ollila said.<\/p>\n

Ryan Jennings, his wife Emily, and their three young children were visiting Ryan’s parents in South Florida this week.<\/p>\n

Wednesday afternoon, the family was on Juno Beach.<\/p>\n

Two of the children were caught in rip currents<\/a> while swimming in the ocean.<\/p>\n

Witnesses said Ryan immediately swam after them, saving the children but losing his own life in the process.<\/p>\n

“He was a hero. He saved the kids. It was exactly who Ryan Jennings is: an amazing, amazing human being,” Ollila said.<\/p>\n

Emily Jennings recently learned she is pregnant with their fourth child.<\/p>\n

The family remains in Florida for now, but Ollila said neighbors in Maine are ready to support them when they return home.<\/p>\n

“They’re in so much pain and deep into grief, but they will overcome it together, and they will be surrounded by a community that loves them,” Ollila said.<\/p>\n

Ollila has set up a GoFundMe account to raise money to help Emily raise the children.<\/p>\n

The-CNN-Wire & 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JUNO BEACH, Fla. — Ryan Jennings, a beloved coach and father from Maine, died while rescuing his children…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[251271,23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-569441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-251271","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}