ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. — A Florida deputy is "lucky to be alive" after he was sucked into a drainage pipe and swept nearly 100 feet underwater as he tried to save a person caught in a flash flood.
The Escambia County Sheriff's Office said in a Facebook post the area had been experiencing severe weather and torrential downpours over the past few days which peaked in the early morning hours on Friday.
That's when Escambia County Deputy William Hollingsworth saw a man who was caught in rapidly rising waters, authorities say.
In a video provided by the sheriff's office via social media, Hollingsworth is seen getting out of his car in the middle of a torrential downpour to help the man. As he approaches, the deputy sees the man go underwater and rushes over to help.
That's when body camera video shows Hollingsworth also getting sucked into a drainage pipe and being swept under U.S. 98, a four-lane highway.
"They were submerged for approximately 30 seconds and traveled nearly 100 feet underwater," the sheriff's office wrote in the social media post.
The footage goes dark for about half a minute when the deputy gets pulled underwater. The video resumes when the deputy and man surface on the other side of the road.
The deputy returns to the road and yells, "I got you" to the man.
"Can you believe what just happened to us? Are you OK buddy?" Hollingsworth told the person.
The man tells the deputy he almost died, to which Hollingsworth replied, "I almost died too, buddy. It sucked me in. Just breathe, buddy."
The two are seen hugging each other after the incident and continue expressing how they can't believe they got sucked into the pipe and almost died.
"[Hollingsworth]... is an example of the exceptional courage displayed by the men and women of law enforcement every day," the agency said.