Selfie stick helps to save family in rip current

Erynn, 16, grasped her selfie stick with an attached GoPro camera recording the chilling drama. Following the fight of his life at Surfside Beach, FOX25 spoke to the Austin dad, Derrick, and his 16-year-old daughter, Erynn, via Skype at the island vacation home the family is renting.

A family was swept away by a rip current on Tuesday and has credited a selfie stick along with an unidentified man for their rescue.

“It was just pure exhaustion seeing your daughter in the waves and your wife go down and not wanting to let them go down”, Derrick said, WBZ reported.

Derrick Johns, a ex- marine, was pulled under with his wife and daughter Erynn, who was holding the selfie stick, reports ABC. Lifeguards and a good Samaritan in a pair of orange shorts managed to rescue her mother and father.

The current swept Derrick Johns further out.

“The guy got back in the water and came out and I literally had nothing left from a physical standpoint”, Johns tells CNN affiliate WHDH. “People were running in”. “It can be an intimidating feeling for people that have not really been around the ocean for too long”.

When you’re getting pulled out to sea, you are not supposed to fight the current but instead try and swim parallel to the beach to get out of it. They say they didn’t know if they were going to survive. “I’m a former Marine and did a few tours overseas and I’ve never felt that level of fatigue or fear”.