A man saving a person struggling in a fast-flowing river is earning accolades on social media for his expert rescue.
In the short clip, the rescuer paddles out on a board to the middle of a river, timing his attempt perfectly!
Here’s the same rescue, in a sped up video:
Many viewers on reddit commented that the rescuer’s expert move is taught at all lifeguard schools.
Said one viewer, “Pretty standard paddleboard rescue method, well worth knowing since it’s clearly very effective. I’m obviously not taking anything away from this awesome rescue example.”
The rescuer flips over his board to pull the swimmer on top.
Another person mentioned that they thought that Duke Kahanamoku, the famous Hawaiian surfer, invented saving people this way, although we have no way of knowing for sure.
Duke heroically rescued eight men from a capsized boat by paddling out to them with his surfboard on June 14, 1925. “Duke saw people suffering and struggling and said, ‘I can do something.’ He just assumed responsibility, and jumped right in the water.”
The technique in the viral clip is often referred to as a “flip rescue” because of the way the board is flipped over to help a distressed individual.
Blue Planet Surf provides a tutorial of this life saving technique. It’s also a little bit different then what you see in the rescue video, obviously, because they are not in a fast-moving river.
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