One should never underestimate the might of the sea. Diver Dylan Gartenmayer is one of the people who have personally experienced the terror of Mother Nature. While free diving near the Florida Keys, the diver was swept away by the powerful Gulf Stream current, which dragged him into the ocean. When his family and friends noticed his disappearance, they quickly notified the U.S. Coast Guard, who immediately began searching for the missing diver. They were racing against time, as the sun was almost setting.
While people desperately searched for him, Dylan Gartenmayer didn’t just sit idly by. He kept himself afloat by holding onto the buoys and used his remaining strength to swim back to the reef, crossing two miles through the shark-infested water.
“I had a bunch of bait floating up around me and everything,” Gartenmayer said. He knew that large fish were feeding on the bait and that there was a possibility sharks might join the frenzy. “I was ready to fight through the night, but I’m glad I didn’t have to,” he added.
As the sky slowly grew dark, the hope of rescuing the Florida diver grew dimmer. Gartenmayer said he saw a small plane flying above him, but they failed to notice him. Fortunately, Lady Luck was still smiling on him that day, as a group of rescuers managed to find him.
Instead of staying on the beach, his family also joined the search and rode a boat. The group eventually spotted the missing man. “I could hear the engines running, and I knew right away that it was my grandfather’s boat,” he said.
The Florida diver is definitely luckier than most. Although he has more than a decade of diving experience, things can still go wrong in an instant. “Unfortunately, missing diver cases often do not have positive outcomes. There are a lot of elements that work against people,” said US Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Elizabeth Tatum.
Many people agreed, saying that the Florida man was incredibly lucky to have survived the ordeal. Given how dark it had become before he was found, the outcome could have been drastically different if his family hadn’t spotted him in time. “Terrifying. The ocean ain’t no joke,” one Redditor remarked.
Some Redditors shared their own experiences of being stranded at sea. One user recounted accidentally falling off their jet ski: “After about 4 hours in the water, I saw a boat very far and started to wave my hat I hat on, which was a bright orange, to see if they would see it. Thankfully they did and went to help me,” the user said.
