The ocean was calm when Paul “Cannonball” McKinriy saw the two teenagers jump off their inflatable raft into the Atlantic. “They both bobbed once, and went down,” says Cannonball in a raspy, slightly Southern accent. “They had floated out beyond the breakers, and people panic after going out there.”
He never panicked. As a member of the American Red Cross Volunteer Lifesaving Corps of Jacksonville Beach, that wasn’t an option.
Snatching the red and white steel torpedo buoy, invented by Corps veteran Harry Walters back in 1919 (and made standard Corps equipment by 1935), he left his perch on the lifeguard stand and ran to save their lives.
That was 1972, but Cannonball remembers running the length of two city blocks down the beach before he reached the spot parallel to where the kids had gone under.
At 51, Cannonball is one of the oldest active surfmen in the Corps of Jacksonville Beach, which means he can run a mile in under eight minutes and complete a 550-meter swim in less than 10 minutes.
Not a bad accomplishment for someone who’s considered “retired,” meaning that Cannonball has already served 8 to 10 years on the beach and been honorably discharged from the Corps. In fact, Cannonball received the “Retired Man of the Year” award at the 2004 Corps banquet.
Cannonball emerges
When asked about his unusual moniker, Cannonball says, “You can’t go through life being sensitive about details.” Smiling, he adds, “everybody had nicknames back then.”
Tim Saggau, a member of the Corps since the winter of 1972, served with Paul until 1983.
“He had his head shaved back then, and people said it looked like a damn cannonball,” says Tim, chuckling, leaning forward and tilting his head down low.
“Back then” was the summer of 1969, when Paul was 16 and his career with the Corps was just beginning.
Paul was born and raised in Jacksonville and spent most of his time with the sand between his toes— fishing, surfing, cooking out or traversing the dunes in either a Jeep or a dune buggy.
Joining the Corps seemed like the next logical step, and with it came a lot of responsibility.
Cannonball says the 1972 rescue of the two siblings who floated past the breakers is still one of the most intense moments of his career. After swimming out to where the two went under, Paul dived and discovered that the boy’s feet were upside down. He grabbed the boy and brought him up to surface.
Before he could make sure that the boy had a firm grip on the two-and-one-half-foot long torpedo buoy, Paul saw the boy’s sister.
“I was lucky,” Cannonball says. “I saw her fingers sticking out of the water after I broke the surface, about 10 feet away.”
After securing the boy, Cannonball dived under the water, finding the girl and bringing her up to the torpedo buoy.
“Then I had to rescue their aunt,” he laughs. “She had seen what was going on from the shore and swum out to help, but she got caught in a riptide.”
Cannonball was able to pluck the woman out of the riptide as she floated by.
“There was a certain amount of luck involved,” he notes.