Erica Wishard and her finance Brian Warter were on a family trip with six children they raised together.
A Pennsylvania couple raising six children drowned after being swept away by a rip current in Florida.
The blended family was on their first vacation together outside Port St. Lucie, Florida. The parents, Erica Wishard and her fiance Brian Warter, were swept away by a rip current.
Authorities say one child tried to yell instructions on how to handle the rip current, but officials say the mom and dad were in "panic mode" and were dragged under.
Warter's father, Larry, tells Inside Edition the family was excited about the vacation. "This was the highlight of the year," he says.
Wishard had four children and Warter had two sons.
"They've had previous marriages and they were getting the family together and both sets of kids love the other," Larry says.
Eight swimmers have lost their lives in rip currents along the East Coast in the last week, including two teens from Queens, New York, as people seek refuge from the sweltering heat wave.
"If you see a break in the waves and the changing color in the water, and the water moving back out, that is a riptide, avoid that space," swimming safety expert Jim Spiers tells Inside Edition.
Spiers, president of Stop Drowning Now, says that if someone does find themselves in a rip tide, it's important to not fight the water.
"Float out on your back and rest. Don't wave both hands, that's just going to tire you out, don't yell to the beach because they're not going to hear you anyway, because it's just too loud," Spiers says. "Once you float out and you get past where the rips let go of you, swim parallel to the shore until you clear the rip, and then swim back in and let the waves help you come back in so you're saving energy."
