Florida Fisherman Saves Drowning Teenager With a Drone

Rip currents have already killed 11 people in the U.S. this year, but last week, a Florida teenager managed to avoid joining that group after a quick-thinking shark fisherman used his drone to save her.

On Thursday, Andrew Smith went fishing at Pensacola Beach after work. Per WSVN, Smith said, “I wasn’t even going to go out and then my friend convinced me to go.” Only 10 minutes after he arrived, a girl came running up asking if anybody could swim. About a hundred yards away from the shore, her friend was battling a rip current.

Smith can’t swim due to a seizure disorder. However, that disorder is also why he uses a drone instead of a kayak to set bait for sharks. As the ocean continued dragging the teenage girl out, Smith said, “I looked down at the drone and I was like, ‘Well, the drone can swim but I can’t.’”

After attaching a flotation device to his drone, Smith flew it across the water. The idea was to provide something for the girl to hold onto until first responders arrived. Unfortunately, the first attempt was a “terrible miss.” Per WSVN, Smith explained, “I released it too early, it was really windy. Like, it wasn’t close at all.” 

A bystander handed Smith another flotation device to try again. With this try, Smith said, “You had to go slower and slower down to her because that was it. That was the last opportunity we were going to have.” Luckily, Smith was able to lower the device “until you could see her hands grab it, and then I lowered it a little more and I released it. Then she climbed on and started floating.”

Paramedics arrived several minutes later. In total, the girl spent about ten minutes caught in the riptide. After being checked over by medical professionals, she was sent home with a clean bill of health. In his ABC News interview, Smith said that authorities told him the girl wouldn’t have survived without his help.

Luck was on the girl’s side in more ways than one. Pensacola Beach is home to Fort Pickens, which has restricted airspace. If the teenagers were just a little farther down, Smith told WSVN, he wouldn’t have been able to fly his drone. According to ABC News, the entire ordeal has prompted public officials to consider regularly using drones as lifeguards, which raises an old question: Can drones be good?

Drones rightfully catch a lot of flack. In the hands of law enforcement, largely unregulated drone use has facilitated mass surveillance. And regular people flying drones can cause major disruptions. During the Palisades Fire earlier this year, a firefighting aircraft collided with some idiot’s drone and, in February, Florida’s Senate introduced a bill that would allow property owners to use “reasonable force” against drones.

But drones can be quite useful in competent hands. For example, drones are used to track fires, and researchers have developed drones that could possibly enter and map the layouts of burning buildings. In search and rescue, drones are also revolutionizing missions. Several years ago, a Scottish mountaineer was located by drone after he fell from an ice cliff. A case study noted that rescuers would have normally have faced “immense challenges” like “a vast search area and altitudes near the limits of human physiologic function.” “Without the use of the drone,” it continued, “locating the climber and executing such an efficient rescue would have been unlikely.”