A Former Miami Dolphin’s Epic 9-Mile Swim To Safety

Robert Konrad, a former fullback for the Dolphins, was forced to swim for survival after he fell off his boat near Miami.

When a dolphin retires, do they forget how to swim? Apparently not, as ex-Dolphin Robert Konrad swam nine miles to shore on Wednesday after falling from his boat off the Florida coast.

Konrad, who was a fullback for the Dolphins from 1999 until 2004, was fishing on his boat on Wednesday, but somehow ended up in the water and watched the boat motor away from him on auto-pilot. Konrad then began a marathon 12-hour swim towards shore, where authorities finally located him after concerned friends noticed he was missing.

The Coast Guard searched for Konrad for more than an hour before he was found on shore in the early hours of Thursday. He was suffering from hypothermia but has since been released from the hospital. This was a much happier ending than an earlier boating accident involving NFL players, also off the Florida coast, where two players died after their boat flipped in 2009. Konrad doesn’t want to speak about the incident, but it goes without saying that the best thing this Dolphin ever did was beach himself.

Photos by Al Messerschmidt / Getty Images