FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - A man had to be rescued from the water off Fort Lauderdale Beach due to the rough surf caused by Hurricane Laura passing near the Florida Keys.
7News cameras captured large waves along Florida’s coast on Monday, tempting surfers and swimmers to test their limits.
Marcus Woollen came to the beach, just off Sunrise Boulevard, on Monday to check out the conditions as the storm passed.
When a man got caught by a rip current, five lifeguards rushed into the water to save him. Woollen captured the rescue on his cellphone.
“There was one person who went further and further out, and the lifeguards kept blowing the whistle, waving this person in,” he said. “It’s an incredible thing to watch. The team worked together to figure this out last night.”
The man could be seen beginning to struggle in the current on the video. The beach where the rescue occurred is notorious for rip currents, even on the best of days.
J.D. Briggs was the first lifeguard to rush into the water to save him.
“I wasn’t quite sure if he was in trouble or not, but when in doubt, you gotta go out,” he said.
Molly Engle, another lifeguard, was the second responder in the water.
“In this thing, when it’s cranking, it’s about 50 meters wide and about 150 meters out to sea,” Engle said.
Three more lifeguards would follow Briggs and Engle into the water as the swimmer grew more tired by the second.
“It’s a feeling of helplessness like nothing else,” lifeguard Daniel Ojito said. “Luckily, we were here, and we’re very good at what we do.”
Josh Harvey was the last lifeguard to enter the water, but he entered with a buoy to help pull the swimmer to safety.
“[I] saw them, grabbed my buoy, swam out, and it took us a while,” Harvey said.
Once the swimmer was on board the buoy, the five lifeguards pulled him out of the water and onto the beach, where paramedics were waiting to check him out.
“He was pretty grateful, and he swallowed water but still completely conscious, and he ended up all right,” Harvey said.
Officials are advising swimmers that end up in a rip current to swim parallel to the shore and not against the current.
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