Man dives into treacherous waters to save strangers from sinking houseboat during devastating Florida storm

People can hardly predict when nature will do a 180-degree flip and a freak storm wash away settlements and overturn boats. According to Daily Mail, a storm caused sizeable destruction in the Panama City region of Florida on June 23, 2023. In the Panama City marina, a houseboat that served as a general store, serving customers near a sandbar, ended up breaking free from its moorings and floated into the sea. Fishermen Travis Brady and his friends had left the marina to catch red snappers as the storm cloud loomed behind them. When the group noticed the houseboat, they decided to get back to the shore after observing the dangerous 5-6 foot waves. According to Brady's accounts, he and his friends also spotted another boat arriving at the scene and its owner attempting to rescue three people trapped in the houseboat.

The rescuer, identified as Boyd Jordan, jumped into the water without caring about his own safety and smashed the window of the houseboat to extract the three people before the houseboat capsized. "He is the true hero of this story," Brady told WJHG. "Without hesitation, he was just in the water helping those people." A video shared by NBC News showed Brady and his friends arriving at the scene to help Jordan by throwing a life jacket with a line attached to it into the water. They managed to haul Jordan aboard safely while dodging the floating debris in the water. The three individuals were also guided to the sandbar, where they could walk ashore to their safety as well. The overcrowded fishing boat in which Brady and Jordan were on ended up crashing into the seawall, but fortunately, no one was gravely injured and the boat did not sustain any damage either.

Brady further told WJHG that Jordan's actions were capable of "restoring your faith in humanity." "It makes you really reflect on the things that are important in life," the fisherman added. "I'm going to try not to get emotional, but it was an intense moment. I've never been super-religious, but today was just a super eye-opening moment for me, and I just feel like divine intervention puts you in the right place at the right time." Another person on a separate boat, Matthew Gillis, admitted that the rescue mission by civilians was full of "adrenaline rush."

"You kind of go into a different kind of mode, you know, we got to get these people to safety, try to help them out as best we can, you know because life is precious and we got to do anything we can to protect them," Gillis told WMBB. "So we tried to do all we could in order to help the people out there." It's great to have people like Brady, Jordan and Gillis help people in need when authorities couldn't reach them on time.