Paul Coro

The Republic | azcentral.com

Being 7 feet 1 and transforming a spindly, 230-pound body on his 2013 NBA draft night into a sturdy, 260-pound pillar have made Alex Len a better basketball player for the Phoenix Suns.

That size and strength were more vital when Len needed to save a friend’s life last week.

“I thought I was going to die,” Jay Johnson said. “He risked his life for me. Nobody knows how far gone I was.”

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Len and Johnson were on a rainy, windy vacation in the Dominican Republic with Len’s charitable foundation director, Ricardo Dickerson, and Len’s best friend, former Ukrainian classmate Serhii Vysotskyi. The foursome stayed for a week at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino near Punta Cana, where the beach lured the group on April 25 even though locals recommended not swimming in the dangerous tides.

Johnson joined him and Vysotskyi, figuring an afternoon swim on the private beach would make him tired for that evening’s flight home to Washington, D.C. Johnson was relaxing in a shoreline lounge chair when Len returned from the rough, high waves with a warning to Johnson that Vysotskyi nearly had drowned.

“Be careful,” Len told Johnson after seeing Vysotskyi pushed away from the beach by a rip current.

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Johnson, 39, planned only to get his feet wet but the water was so cold that he elected to jump into a wave. He jumped into a second wave. He jumped into a third wave. That time, he could not feel the sand beneath his feet to stand back up. He looked back for his friends and saw that he was about 40 yards from the beach.

“When I tried to swim back, I wasn’t going anywhere,” said Johnson, a fair swimmer. “The waves were coming so fast. Every time I’d come up, a wave would hit me. I was panicking. I thought I might not make it back.”

“Help!” Johnson yelled upon spotting Len’s towering frame.

Len, 22, momentarily thought Johnson was joking, trying to get their attention. He quickly ascertained the fear in Johnson’s voice as his arms flailed and he took quick gasps of air before waves plunged him underwater repeatedly.

Len did not look around for help. Without hesitation, he sprinted into the sea to save his friend.

“By the time I got to him, he was halfway passed out,” Len said of Johnson, whose arms were exhausted as his legs cramped. “He couldn’t swim. He wasn’t moving. If I would’ve come a couple minutes later, he probably would’ve drowned.”

The fight for his life was not over. Len is a strong swimmer. It is part of his workout routine, swimming non-stop for as much as 90 minutes at a time. But the sea waves continued to knock Len deeper into the water as he held onto Johnson, repeatedly going underwater to lift his 6-foot, 200-pound friend’s listless body above the water.

They had veered close to a desolate public beach where a lifeguard emerged toward them. He wound up needing Len’s help, too.

The lifeguard got a flotation device to Johnson and held onto the attached rope but his swim strokes were no match for the strength of the waves either.

“I was holding the float but he was trying to stay afloat,” Johnson said of the lifeguard.

Len, whose leg strength is tops among the Suns, grabbed the rope and powered them toward the shore, going underwater and pushing off the seabed.

“I was panicking at some point too,” Len said. “You’re putting all of your energy into it and it’s taking you back.”

Eventually, Len could stand with his head above water to walk the pair in. Len said the rescue lasted about 10 minutes. They carried Johnson to their room. He skipped his scheduled flight but felt better by dinnertime, when a hotel security guard told him, “If he wasn’t as tall as he was, we’d be digging out your body.”

That is not lost on Johnson, who has known Len for three years through Dickerson. Johnson runs a non-profit organization, Gametyme Foundation (gametyme.com), which works with NBA players including Len on charitable endeavors. Last year, Len started the LenD A Hand Foundation (lenfoundation.org).

Johnson said the harrowing ordeal has made him more focused on his work to assist disadvantaged children.

“I want to help someone else, like Alex helped me,” Johnson said.

It was Johnson, not Len, who wanted to make the story public so that fans could know what sort of person they support. Len humbly declines a hero label.

“I didn’t feel like it at the moment,” Len said. “I was just trying to help Jay.”

Reach Paul Coro at paul.coro@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-2470. Follow him attwitter.com/paulcoro.