The men
who row into
the storm
They are not soldiers or officials, yet when floodwaters rise,
they become the line between fear and survival.
Story by Thu Vân & Bảo Long | Designed for Longform by Anh Đức
Nghĩa finally fell ill.
Twenty-seven days without rest and without a dry moment.
The cold crept into his bones, and the fever came quietly, but quickly.
“Maybe it’s because I was so close to bodies of dead ones,” he said.
“It felt as if some of that energy had followed me home.”
But when he recovered the next day, he went straight back into the water with his motorboat team to bring drinks and food to people still stranded by the flood.
Lê Trọng Nghĩa
The one who never stops moving
“When there’s a storm, I just go. I still have my youth and strength, so I use them to help others.
Working as a dive instructor on Phú Quý Island, Lê Trọng Nghĩa, 33, has spent the past decade travelling wherever disaster strikes, joining rescue missions from the northern mountains to the central coast. Helping others has long ceased to be a seasonal act. It has become a major part of his life’s rhythm.
Nghĩa was cycling through Hà Tĩnh Province when the storm came. He got stranded overnight at the Ngang Pass without food and continued north once the storm passed. In Thanh Hóa, he waded through chest-high floods in Nông Cống Ward for several days before moving on to Thái Nguyên, Lạng Sơn, Hà Giang and Bắc Giang, wherever the next call for help came.
When he learned that the cities of Huế and Đà Nẵng were bracing for another storm, he immediately transported 400 life jackets overnight to join the rescue efforts there.
He joined the motorboat team, answering calls for help transporting those stranded if they needed to go to the hospital or recover dead bodies.
“When it came to crying, I cried a lot," he admitted.
"But the others told me never to let my eyes get blurry, because if they did, I wouldn’t be able to see the way to keep working. So I tried to hold it in. We all did. Everyone cried a lot. It was impossible not to, seeing the pain and loss of the people, witnessing what they were going through.
“In my team, almost everyone got sick and exhausted because it was so harsh. We had to stay in the water day and night. Some nights we didn’t eat until 10pm. And one day, we had nothing to eat at all. Just like the other day, we had instant noodles but no hot water, so we ate them raw.”
He speaks of danger without drama or exaggeration.
“When you step onto the motorboat, you know half your life is already at risk,” he said.
“The current is fierce, raging like a waterfall. After six in the evening, we were forbidden to go out. Even rescuers could die. I saw a motorboat capsize right in front of me.”
For Nghĩa, courage comes from readiness and an instinct to act fast, as speed can often mean the difference between life and death.
“There’s no time to think when you’re in the water,” he said. “Only to act.”
Nghĩa said that his parents had kept calling, begging him to come home, but he told them this was not something anyone could tell him to do – it was something he had to do himself, a calling.
Across central Việt Nam, others share that same conviction, men who drop everything when the storm calls, who know the rivers by instinct and the risks by heart. They come from different walks of life, but once the waters rise, they become a single force – bound by the same quiet promise to keep going, no matter how fierce the current.
For days and nights, they steered motorboats through dangerous currents to evacuate residents, deliver food and medicine, and even bringing the dead one from the flood.
Their journeys reveal not only the peril of flood rescue, also the endurance and solidarity that run deep in the Vietnamese spirit. In the face of rising waters, their courage reminds us that care often begins in the simplest act – turning back into danger when everyone else has fled.
"Rescue skills are extremely important. First of all, you need strength and physical endurance. When you’re jumping on and off a motorboat, it takes a lot of power. Luckily, I had been doing push-ups every day, hundreds of them, so I could move easily. For someone who’s overweight, say 70 or 80 kilos, it’s almost impossible to jump on and off; they’d have to stand still on the motorboat, which makes it really hard to move around and save people. That’s why the first rule in rescue work is to stay fit. Without that strength, going out there is pointless."
Trung Đào
The man who reads the river
“I think heaven protects us when we’re doing good. Maybe that’s why I’ve made it back every time.”
In Hội An, where the Thu Bồn River winds through the old town, Đào Đặng Công Trung, 46, knows the water like the back of his hands. Once a tour boat operator taking visitors to Cù Lao Chàm Island, he now uses those same skills for rescue, steering motorboats through flooded streets and across violent currents to reach people trapped in their homes.
When the floods came, he spent days on end in the water, providing first aid, moving the injured and helping those stranded in remote areas.
“The phone kept ringing,” he recalled. “I couldn’t let any call go unanswered.”
He worked through many nights without sleep, answering panicked voices, calming people down and giving instructions on how to stay safe until morning.
Operating a motorboat in floodwaters, he explained, is nothing like navigating a calm river. The current can change in seconds. Hidden beneath the surface might be sharp poles, fences or tombs. One wrong turn could capsize the boat or drive it into someone’s home.
“Driving a motorboat requires more than just skill – it takes heart, courage, experience and resilience to navigate through floodwaters," he said.
"Operating a motorboat is one of those jobs that demand a very high level of expertise before you can truly save lives.”
Trung joined Hội An’s local rescue team in the early 2000s, taking part in major missions during the floods of 1999 and 2007. Over time, he became one of the most trusted responders, leading quick-reaction groups across the Thu Bồn River, from Cẩm Kim to Trà Quế, from Thanh Hà to Cẩm Hà, where water levels can rise or fall within hours.
“The terrain here is steep,” he said. “You need experience to cross safely, or the current will take you.”
There were moments when even experience wasn’t enough. During one rescue, the engines of both motorboats failed mid-river. The smaller of the two boats drifted dangerously close to Cẩm Nam Bridge before regaining control, while Trung’s own vessel struck a post and cracked near the engine.
“If it had taken another ten minutes, it would have sunk,” he said.
He believes it was a lot more than luck on his side that day.
“I think heaven protects us when we’re doing good,” he said with a faint smile. “Maybe that’s why I’ve made it back every time.”
When he finally returned home after days of rescue work, his mother could barely speak.
“She asked if I would be granted a title of martyr if something happened to me,” he recalled. “I told her she’d have a heroic son,” he laughed.
“But being a hero isn’t something anyone wants. You just act because someone needs help.”
For Trung, the key to saving lives lies in coordination and trust.
“Rescue begins with leadership,” he said.
“Authorities must warn people early, guide them to safety, and work with experienced volunteers. When both sides move together, the results can be extraordinary.”
"To do well in flood prevention, rescue, and relief work, the first and foremost responsibility lies with the authorities. This has to start from the local government. As for volunteer groups, such as rapid response or emergency rescue teams, they act out of compassion and goodwill. They aren’t officially responsible, but they step in to help people out of care and empathy.
So first, authorities need to provide accurate and timely information, alerting people and advising them to move their belongings to higher ground – that’s the most essential thing. The second is to connect with volunteer teams that already have experience in disaster response. Many of these volunteers have valuable skills and proper equipment, so when they work together with local authorities, the coordination can be truly effective."
Đào Đặng Công Trung
Volunteer
Phan Thanh Tin
The teacher who trains for storms
"You feel joy for a few seconds, then you move on. Someone else is waiting.”
In Đà Nẵng, Phan Thanh Tin, 47, teaches future athletes the importance of endurance and control. Yet outside the classroom, those same lessons guide him through a different kind of test, the unpredictable violence of floodwaters.
His latest mission began on October 1, when a former student in Nghệ An sent him photos of submerged villages and exhausted rescue workers.
“I couldn’t just sit and watch,” he said.
That night, he ordered a motorboat from Hạ Long, had it transported overnight to Đà Nẵng City.
Friends and former classmates helped gather supplies while Tin coordinated rescues. His team of ten motorboats and fifteen small powerboats worked nonstop, ferrying people from collapsing homes to safe ground.
The calls for help never stopped: elderly couples stranded, pregnant women trapped in flooded houses, sick children needing to go to hospital.
He recalled: “When we received calls for help, I told my teammates, especially when it came to pregnant women, that we had to remember it wasn’t just one life, but two. I told them to prioritise those cases first. Then we focused on people who needed urgent medical attention, like those suffering from strokes.”
In one case in Quảng Nam, his team arrived just in time for an emergency delivery.
“You feel joy for a few seconds, then you move on. Someone else is waiting.”
Even when the waters recede, Tin’s work continues. From home, he guides other rescuers by phone, showing them how to perform first aid, treat hypothermia, or manage victims brought ashore.
“It’s like being both a coordinator and a nurse,” he said.
“Experience is the most valuable thing we can share.”
Still, he knows experience alone is not enough.
“We need professionalism,” he said. “Those who operate motorboats should be licensed. If something happens, the responsibility is heavy.”
He has been advocating for formal training in maritime safety for volunteers in every province, at least a few in each place to form the backbone of a national, professional rescue network.
“The current in Nghệ An Province, or in Đà Nẵng City is not the same as in northern provinces like Lạng Sơn or Cao Bằng,” he explained.
“Each place has its own rhythm. One mistake and the water will teach you quickly.”
For Tin, every rescue is a lesson in both humility and leadership.
“You learn how small you are against nature,” he said, “but also how strong people become when they act together.”
Hồ Ngọc Thanh
The quiet strength of Đà Nẵng
“My wife and mother-in-law didn’t stop me. They told me to go, because these are our own people. If we don’t help, who will?”
For Hồ Ngọc Thanh, 40, from Đà Nẵng, floods are not just natural disasters. They are an annual test of endurance, compassion and faith. When the rains came again this year, he and his team didn’t wait to be called. They had already spent a week preparing, collecting life jackets, checking motorboats and setting up hotline numbers connecting volunteers across Đà Nẵng and Quảng Nam.
“We had around 2,000 life jackets ready before the floods arrived,” he said. “Once the water began rising, we moved immediately.”
Their network stretched across different communes of the city, from Đại Lộc and Nông Sơn to Điện Bàn. In those areas, the roads disappeared first. Motorboats became the only link between one house and another.
Over four days, his team also helped recover four victims who had drowned, ensuring their bodies were returned to their families for burial.
“That part is the hardest,” he said quietly. “No one wants to face it, but someone has to.”
But there were moments of life too, the woman in labour they rescued just in time, the feverish child they carried to hospital.
“Every call could be a birth or a death,” he said.
By the third day, Thanh’s team shifted focus to the city’s hospitals, where more than 1,500 patients and their relatives were stranded without supplies. They delivered food and water, then used their return trips to respond to emergency calls.
“You can’t waste a single journey,” he said. “Every kilometre counts.”
Not every mission ended as they hoped. One night, they received news of another pregnant woman trapped on the far side of a flooded bridge. Thanh and his teammate, Thành, set out after dark despite the official order to stop all rescue work after 6pm.
He said: “The current was too strong on the main river so we took the long route, but even that was impassable.”
When their engine failed again, they had no choice but to call the woman’s family, guiding them to keep her safe until the waters receded.
“It was the worst feeling,” he said. “Knowing she was there, and we couldn’t reach her.”
He considers himself fortunate to have his family’s understanding.
“My wife and mother-in-law didn’t stop me,” he said. “They told me to go, because these are our own people. If we don’t help, who will?”
Even for someone who has seen many floods, this one felt different.
“Central Việt Nam faces storms every year,” he said. “We’ve learned to endure. But this one was worse than anything since 1964. The water came too fast, too high, too strong.”
And yet, when it comes again, as it always does, Thanh will go. “You don’t get used to it,” he said. “You just learn how to keep moving.”
Phạm Chí Kỳ Y & Nguyễn Tiến Điệp. Photo courtesy of Kỳ Y
Phạm Chí Kỳ Y & Nguyễn Tiến Điệp. Photo courtesy of Kỳ Y
The young volunteers
of the motorboat team
During the recent floods in Điện Bàn (Quảng Nam), the motorboat team was joined by many university students from Đà Nẵng. They helped transport relief supplies, evacuate residents, and even assist in bringing victims’ bodies out of flooded areas, doing whatever was needed without hesitation or complaint.
What moved everyone most was their youthful courage. In pouring rain and fierce currents, they steered small boats through danger to deliver food and water to stranded families, and, at times, to ferry the deceased to waiting ambulances. Each trip was a test of nerve. The team held their breath until the young men returned safely, hearts heavy with both pride and worry.
One of them, Nguyễn Tiến Điệp, from Ninh Bình Province, quietly stood out.
It was only after several days that others learned he had helped wrap a victim’s body, then piloted a small 8-horsepower motorboat through waves and rain to deliver hundreds of relief packages to isolated villages. When the floods in Đà Nẵng City subsided, he continued north to Hà Tĩnh Province and Huế City, using the same boat to reach communities still trapped by rising water.
Alongside Điệp were Phạm Chí Kỳ Y, from Cà Mau, and Nguyễn Trọng Hưng, from Thanh Hóa, equally brave and tireless. Together, they worked through stormy nights, carrying supplies, assisting rescue teams, and gently lifting victims from motorboats to hearses. Sometimes, they simply stood in silence beside those who had passed, so the dead would not be alone on their final journey.
They never called themselves heroes – just young people who saw what needed to be done, and did it.
They are not soldiers, not officials, and not men seeking praise. Yet when the storm hit, they became the fine line between fear and survival.
Each mission carries a different story, a different river, a different loss, but all share the same belief: that courage is quiet, that compassion is action, and that no flood, however fierce, can drown the will to help.
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