MIAMI (WSVN) - Two crew members from a Ballyhoo Media advertising boat helped pull a woman to safety on Brickell Key after she was knocked into the water by her dog.
The captains spoke to 7News on Friday afternoon, just hours after the rescue.
“This boat happens to have a flat bottom so we can go in shallower water,” said Capt. Moe Wyman with Ballyhoo Media.
The woman was thrown into the water near the entrance to the Miami River.
The captains, experienced members of the Ballyhoo Media team, noticed the woman struggling in the water and offered their help.
“I’ve been with the company for about a year, and we go slow enough that if we see a problem, when we see the problem, we ask if they need help,” said Wyman.
A picture taken by one of the captains showed people unsuccessfully trying to get the woman back to land.
“I noticed a woman, they were trying to pull her out of the water, and it was about 5 feet, and they couldn’t do it,” said Wyman. “Every time they pulled her up, she fell back down in the water.”
To make sure the woman was safe, the crew decided to bring the boat as close as possible and instructed her to swim to the vessel.
“So I said to Isaac, ‘We’re going to pull over as close as we can get, and we’ll have her swim to the boat, and we’ll pull her up in the boat, which is easier for us to do,” said Wyman. “So that’s what we did.”
Cellphone video captured how quickly the captains were able to safely get her onto their boat.
“You could tell she was tired. She was excited. She was nervous. She didn’t know who was taking care of her dog,” said Wyman. “She kept looking back, but she knew that the best thing to do was get on the boat and for us to take her to a place where we could get her off and she could get back to her dog.”
According to the business, this isn’t their first rescue, and it likely won’t be their last one.
“We are a water-based media company, but we are very proud of our crew,” said Chris Doval, vice president of operations for Ballyhoo Media. “They are licensed and trained crew members, they follow the procedures that they have been provided, and at the end of the day, we’re just truly proud that they were there to step into action.”
As for the boat crew, they said they have no problem doing their job promoting ads and being there for anyone who needs them on the water.
“We would help anybody, whether they be a boater or a police officer, or someone who’s in the water or any problem,” said Wyman. “That’s what we’re supposed to do.”
Ballyhoo Media has three of these boats in South Florida. The company also has two in Tampa.
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