"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 said. "Her friend was getting sucked more and more out, and I looked down at the drone and was like, 'The drone can swim but I can't.'" That's when Smith sprang into action. "I ran up and grabbed one of those and ran back down to the drone," Smith said. "I flew it out, and it was a terrible miss. I released it too early, it was really windy."
At this point, the teenage girl had been battling the rip current for five minutes. "I was shaking pretty badly," Smith said. "It was nerve-wracking, I almost cried." Smith didn't give up, another bystander gave him a second flotation device. Bystander, Robert Nay, then started filming, saying, 'He had never seen anything like that in his life.' He added it was, 'Apparent the young girl was losing steam very fast.' ..... "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." In his second drop, the mission was successful. "I lowered it until you could see her hands grab it, and then I lowered it a little more and I released it," Smith said. "She climbed on and started floating."