A 21-year-old Florida free diver was caught within the powerful Gulf Stream current, which swept him into shark-infested waters – before his elated family found him several hours later amid shrieks of “there he’s!”
Dylan Gartenmayer was free-diving – holding his breath about 35 feet underwater – near Key West Thursday while two pals waited of their boat, NBC Miami reported.
Conditions soon deteriorated and the group got down to head to shore, where Gartenmayer decided he desired to get yet one more dive in.
“So I ran back out and that’s where every part began happening,” he told the outlet.
Rapidly, Gartenmayer was swept out by the present and dragged down 150 feet, where he managed to carry his breath for about two minutes before surfacing.
He said he swam a couple of mile to a channel marker, while clutching a bit of bamboo that had been floating within the water.
Meanwhile, his family and friends fretted about his whereabouts.
Gartenmayer’s mom Tabitha said she got a distressing call from her ex-husband.
“‘Tab, something’s flawed with Dylan! They haven’t seen him in an hour,’” she told the NBC station. “And from that moment on, this sense got here over me, similar to this, and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t talk.”
The family quickly mobilized and set off in the hunt for their missing loved one, together with the US Coast Guard, as they raced toward his last known location.
“We had the coordinates that got to us, but he obviously wasn’t on those,” Tabitha told NBC Miami.
Meanwhile, Gartenmayer said he caught a glimpse of the Coast Guard in the space.
“I could see their blue lights, the helicopter going, doing their grid pattern. My bamboo had began drifting away from me,” he said.
Gartenmayer and his cousin Priscilla documented the drama in a series of gripping social media posts, Insider reported.
“I knew that the further and further I got out, the less of a likelihood I’d be found, and it was taking me out deeper and deeper,” Gartenmayer said.
Gartenmayer said he cut off three mooring balls and created a raft to “conserve body heat” while sharks swam in the realm.
“By some miracle, my parents and everybody else on board my grandfather’s boat had ended up driving and principally landing right on top of me,” he said.
Gartenmayer said he waved his spear to catch their attention and that his pal Joel Cruz finally spotted him.
Priscilla shot several TikTok videos which have gone viral, including one during which the family and friends yell in excitement once they spot the stranded diver.
“There he’s!” they’re heard screaming.
In a follow-up post, Priscilla captioned a video of her exhausted and freezing cousin being pulled onto the boat and into the arms of his rescuers.
“We’ve lived in Key West for a lot of generations,” she wrote. “And we’ve got fallen members of the family who we let to rest at sea and we actually feel like they protected him.”
The Coast Guard checked Gartenmayer’s vitals and located that he had a “low core temperature, but that’s about it,” Priscilla wrote.
“He spent the night in his bed, protected and sound. We’re so grateful,” she added.
A Coast Guard official said the service was grateful that Gartenmayer was recovered safely.
“Too often missing diver cases don’t have positive outcomes, and the circumstances of this case didn’t forecast for one,” Lt. Cmdr. Elizabeth Tatum, a search and rescue mission coordinator, told NBC Miami.
“Sunset, weather conditions and Dylan’s outfit were playing against us on this case, but his foresight to lash mooring balls together to make him a much bigger goal within the water was smart,” she added.
