On 19 January, 22-year-old Dylan Gartenmayer was free diving 35 feet off the coast of Florida when he was carried away by strong currents and separated from his companions.
He was forced down to 150 feet by the current, where he was trapped underwater for about two minutes.
His friends contacted the US Coast Guard for assistance when they realized Dylan wasn’t coming to the surface. In addition, Dylan’s family hurried out in another boat to help with the rescue effort.
Amazingly, he was eventually spotted about a mile away while clinging to a makeshift raft. His cousin, Priscilla Gartenmayer captured the touching moment he was reunited with his family.
He said he had been underwater for over two minutes and was having trouble breathing. He eventually surfaced a mile away.
Recalling his experience, Dylan said “I got to a point where the boat had disappeared. From that point on I realised that things were starting to get serious,”
He then put together three buoys from the reef to form an emergency raft.
Priscilla wrote on Facebook “Got a horrible phone call yesterday that Dyl had went diving and hadn’t been seen for two hours! After calling the fam together we hopped on the contender and had the scariest boat ride of our life out to his last-known coordinates”.
“God was definitely on our side because as soon as we stopped running out and started looking, we spotted him right away at almost the exact coordinates we were given.” she added