Eric Dane, the “Grey’s Anatomy” actor who died in February at age 53 after battling ALS, described a frightening moment in his posthumous memoir in which his younger daughter, Georgia, had to rescue him from drowning.
The incident happened during a family vacation in Antigua after Dane’s 2025 ALS diagnosis. He had gone into the water but found he could no longer swim, and Georgia and a friend pulled him back to safety.
In the memoir, titled “My Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments,” Dane wrote that his first call afterward was to his estranged wife, Rebecca Gayheart, according to an excerpt obtained by People.
“Georgia hands me my phone,” Dane wrote. “‘I can’t swim, Rebecca,’ I say. ‘I can’t swim.'”
“She explodes into tears and I weep with her. We cry together. Finally, the tears slow, become reduced to gasps, and when we’re both cried out, Rebecca says, ‘I was afraid of this day. I knew it would come. I’ve been dreading it.'”
Dane had also spoken about the experience publicly in June 2025, during an interview with Diane Sawyer on “Good Morning America.”
“When I jumped into the ocean that day and realized I couldn’t swim and generate enough power to get myself back to the boat, I thought, ‘Oh God,'” he told Sawyer. “And I realized in that moment I’m not safe in the water anymore.”
“She [Georgia] dragged me back to the boat,” Dane said, recalling that he broke down in tears afterward but made sure his daughter returned to snorkeling and enjoying the rest of the trip with her friend.
Dane died on Feb. 19, less than a year after announcing his ALS diagnosis. His death certificate lists the cause as respiratory failure.
Dane and Gayheart, 55, married in Las Vegas in 2004 and had two daughters together, Billie, born in 2010, and Georgia, born in 2011. Gayheart filed for divorce in February 2018 after 14 years of marriage, but the couple never signed the divorce papers and remained close, continuing to vacation together with their children. Gayheart formally withdrew the divorce petition after Dane’s diagnosis.
This past June, marking the first Father’s Day since Dane’s death, Gayheart shared photos of him with their daughters on her Instagram Stories. “I hurt for my girls today,” she wrote. “It’s a ‘first’ of many to come. I know Eric is looking out for them every day.”
