The family of five showed up at the lakeside park in north Texas on Christmas Eve. Camping over Christmas was a long standing tradition and, as the kids were getting older, they were able to take longer hikes.

They followed a trail that ran around the lake. The youngest daughter was seven years old and lagged behind, unnoticed by the older kids and adults. As they made their way back to the campsite they realized the young girl was missing. What followed were something we know all too well- frantic calling and searching and eventually a 911 call.

Multiple agencies responded and researched the area. Eventually a tracker dog focused on a spot not too far from the campsite. A Department of Public Safety dive team arrived. They knew that this was a recovery operation and the time for potential rescue had long passed. They dove for several hours in the frigid waters but found nothing.

Thousands of people saw the heartbreaking story on the news.

Hundreds of miles away a woman in Louisiana woke up in a cold sweat. She had a dream that she saw the young girl in the water just in front of several white pillars. She couldn’t shake the image. It wasn’t a normal dream. It felt so real. Finally, after not being able to go back to sleep, she picked up the phone and made a call.

The woman was so convincing on the phone that the dive commander decided to follow his gut and go back out to the lake. On the far side of the lake there were some white barrels standing upright. They looked like pillars from a distance. He called his team back and they set up to dive. The first diver entered the water and resurfaced with the girl’s body within about 40 seconds.

This is a true story that was recently related to me by the very same dive commander. He was ex military and currently a police chief. He’d overseen the state dive team for many years, had seen a lot, and was definitely not the kind of guy that embellishes his stories.

It’s hard not to hear this and not believe in something. We see the world through our own lenses so some might say it was divine intervention from some type of “higher power”. Others might say its voodoo, telepathy, or an interconnectedness of being. My favorite is a connection that travels through a force that permeates the universe and binds it together (for the Star Wars fans).

It’s surprising how many people in public safety are superstitious. But after these men and women learn to follow their instincts and see patterns in seeming chaos, there is a real reward. There are too many police investigators that solve crimes by weighing the evidence AND following their instincts, or fire fighters that can “read” what fires will do even when it seems illogical.

Sometimes you have to trust your gut to see the unseen.