Photo: CBS 12//Screenshot
A lot of surfers have a love-hate relationship with drones. On the one hand, they’ve revolutionized surf filmmaking, allowing sweeping aerial videography to be readily attainable to even a rank amateur. On the other hand, anyone who’s been out in even a moderately crowded lineup has probably heard the familiar whirring of tiny propellers and rolled their eyes a little at the intrusion. Recently, a Pensacola shark fisherman managed to make a strong case for their place in our society, when he used a drone to rescue a young swimmer who had been caught in a rip current.
The rescue was carried out by Pensacola fisherman Andrew Smith. As Smith explained to Florida news outlet CBS 12, he normally uses the drone to fly out bait while fishing for sharks (due to a seizure disorder, Smith is unable to kayak bait out like other fishermen in the area – or to swim). On Thursday afternoon, Smith wasn’t even necessarily planning on going out to fish, but a friend convinced him to go after work. Then, around 7:00 p.m., a nearby swimmer became caught in a rip current.
“I was sitting there and this girl came running, asking if anybody could swim, I said no, I absolutely could not swim, and she was running and screaming, and nobody could swim,” Smith told CBS 12. “Her friend was getting sucked more and more out, and I looked down at the drone and was like, ‘Well, the drone can swim, I can’t.'”
Smith sprang to action, grabbing a flotation device and affixing it to the drone. When he tried to take it out to the girl, though, high winds blew the device too far away. A bystander gave him a second device, and he went for another attempt.
“I flew it back out, and after the first one, I could tell how windy it was,” Smith said. “Then I lowered it down, I had to go slower and slower down to her because that was it. That was the last opportunity we were going to have.”
This time, he managed to successfully deliver the flotation device. Shortly after, emergency personnel arrived to retrieve her. “If it wasn’t for that second drop, she wouldn’t have made it,” Smith continued. “The EMS, the cops, and the lifeguards said she wouldn’t have made it.”
