Eric Dane Called Estranged Wife Rebecca Gayheart After Their Daughter Saved Him From Drowning Amid ALS Battle, Book Reveals: 'We Cried Together'

Eric Dane almost drowned amid his battle with ALS.

In his posthumous memoir, My Book of Days: A Memoir of Moments, which comes out on November 3, Dane recounted the moment his daughter saved his life.

The actor was diagnosed with the neurodegenerative disease in 2024 after he noticed some of his fine motor skills quickly deteriorating, including his ability to swim.

Dane was on vacation, swimming with his children in Antigua, just months after he was diagnosed, when he found himself stuck in the water and slowly going under.

His daughter, Georgia, and one of her friends were forced to come to his rescue in the water. The first person he called after he was pulled from the waves was his estranged wife, Rebecca Gayheart.

"Georgia hands me my phone," he wrote in an excerpt. "What happened?' Rebecca says. 'I can’t swim, Rebecca,' I say. 'I can’t swim.'"

Both Dane and Gayheart burst into tears, realizing the swift and cruel nature of his recent diagnosis.

"She explodes into tears and I weep with her," he continued. "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,'" he added.

Gayheart and Dane were married for 14 years and had two children together, Georgia, 14, and Billie, 16. They filed for divorce in 2018, but never got around to signing the papers.

Dane died in February at 53 years old, less than a year after he publicly announced his heartbreaking battle with ALS.

"I’m going to take this on. I’m going to fight. I’m going to show my girls how to walk through this life with grace and dignity, no matter what. I am going to FIGHT," he recalled thinking when he was first diagnosed. "This has become my purpose. My reason. This is now my job.”

In other earth-shattering moments, as his health deteriorated, Dane learned he could no longer use chopsticks or even hug his daughter to congratulate her after a ballet recital.

"Billie, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I can’t wrap my arms around you. I wish I could wrap my arms around you. I can’t lift my arms anymore," he remembered telling his daughter after a performance.

The father and daughter broke into sobs as she wrapped her arms around him, squeezing him tight even though he could not squeeze her back.

"Tears stream down my cheeks, flooding her marks of red lips, ruining them, creating crimson blotches. It looks as if my cheeks have been smeared with blood," he wrote. "And then, weirdly, I feel wonderful. This moment — my daughter holding me, my arms and hands useless, the two of us crying — feels incredibly beautiful and I think we may be forced to start a new tradition."