Nicole Kissel won't be grounded for not listening to her parents.
"When you're saving someone's life, we don't have to ground you," said her mother, Mallisa Rainey. Or when you've been featured on ABC World News and Good Morning America.
Kissel's family wasn't surprised when they heard the blonde-haired girl, who learned to swim before she could walk, helped save Charles "Dale" Ostrander's life last Friday in the choppy waters off the Long Beach peninsula in Washington state.
"It doesn't make me feel like a hero because if those other people weren't there, he wouldn't have made it for sure," Nicole said. As for her pulling Dale to safety? Not "a big deal."
Instead, it was just second nature for a girl who was taught to help someone in need and put others who were in trouble before herself.
National and international media coverage focused on the 12-year-old Merced girl this week after she helped save Dale's life.
She was visiting her father in Washington when she heard the calls for help coming from Dale, 12, in the water. She headed back toward him on her boogie board, despite calls from her dad to come back.
Read the complete story at mercedsunstar.com