ST. AUGUSTINE BEACH, Fla. — Friends of a woman who's still recovering from her injuries have been looking for the man who saved her life Saturday as currents pulled her out to sea at St. Augustine Beach. They want to thank him.
Kelly became a victim of the strong currents along with her son and another teen they were swimming with. As the teens struggled to safety, Kelly disappeared in the ocean.
And then he appeared. We now know who he is. The man who pulled Kelly's lifeless body from the water to two nurses who were thankfully nearby. The nurses went to work as Kelly's lips were blue and she was foaming at the mouth, witnesses said. The nurses brought her back with CPR.
While they all wanted to thank the mystery man, he too wanted to know the condition of the woman he pulled from the water.
Rod Boothe reached out to First Coast News Wednesday morning after seeing the report the previous night referring to him as the "mystery man."
"I am the one that pulled her out," Boothe said. He and his family were visiting St. Augustine Beach from Atlanta. "My family was down for the weekend visiting some friends who took us to St. Augustine Beach for the day on Saturday.
"I have been checking every day to see if she survived and just now saw this," Boothe said of the First Coast News report. "I'm glad that she made it."
Boothe then gave the following details of his heroic actions:
"The only reason I was in the water is because my 9 year old son got caught in a dangerous riptide while he was boogie boarding. When I was bringing him in, he told me he heard somebody yelling for help. When I got him to shore, I saw what I guess was the son with a young girl. I went out to them. The son told me to "Please help his mother". I looked out and saw her - pretty far out. When I got to her, she was bobbing up and down and her lips were already blue. The riptide was really strong, but I managed to be able to get her in. I was exhausted when I got about 50 feet from shore because the waves were rough and I was trying to keep her above water. Her son came back and started to panic. I told him to run and yell for help and then started to try to carry her. When I got about 5 feet from the edge of the water, people started to come up and a lady said she knew CPR. Several guys came up and helped me pull her about 20 feet into the sand where everybody started to work on her. Anyways, that has made my weekend that I found out that she survived."
