A Florida tattoo artist recently captured some incredible footage of a courageous beach rescue. Joseph Osborne was playing around with a drone camera during his break on Saturday when something caught his attention. While flying the device over Flagler Beach, he saw a group of lifeguards working together to save a boogie boarder in trouble. In order to reach the unfortunate swimmer, who had drifted too far out, the team formed a human chain.
“I didn’t even know that existed,” Joseph told Fox 35, referring to the way the lifeguards linked themselves together to save the victim. “You don’t know what they know. You just have trust in them.”
He continued, “I was actually kind of impressed. It was definitely a rehearsed thing … with their buoys and their lines, and they use them in unison. Very impressive. I thought it was very neat.”
Others have also been marveling at the rescue technique shown in the video, which has since gone viral. Senior lifeguard Rebecca Reynolds says that it’s not often she and her coworkers have bird’s-eye view footage of their own feats.
“We just have to tell by word of mouth or tell each other about our rescues, but we never really get to see how far out a person was or how well we did something,” she said.
Tom Gillin, ocean rescue director at Flagler Beach, clarified that the boogie boarder wasn’t drowning; he just couldn’t get back to shore. Apparently, the method used to retrieve him isn’t unheard of.
“We just link the buoys together and we form that chain,” Tom explained to the Daytona Beach News-Journal. “The person at the beginning of the chain is on shallow footing, so they can pull back and walk their way back.”
Watch the footage captured by Joseph’s drone in the video below!
You can find the source of this story’s featured image here.
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