Drone video gives bird's-eye view of Flagler Beach lifeguards rescuing swimmer in Florida

FLAGLER BEACH, Fla. - It's not often you get to see lifeguards in action from a bird's-eye view.

"I didn't even know that existed," Joe Osborne told FOX 35 while describing how lifeguards rescued a swimmer on Saturday. "You don't know what they know. You just have trust in them."

He was on a break from work at a tattoo shop across from A1A when he decided to put his drone in the air and capture some shots. He had no idea he’d see lifeguards rescuing a man.

"I was actually kind of impressed. It was definitely a rehearsed thing ... with their buoys and their lines, and they use them in unison. Very impressive. I thought it was very neat," Osborne said.

In the video, you can see the training and teamwork it takes to pull off the rescue of what appeared to be a man with a boogie board who got too far from the shore.

"That rescue is pretty far out, so they needed backup, so the backup comes out, and then they chain up by grabbing each other's buoys," Malaina Bryant, a lieutenant with Flagler Beach Ocean Rescue, said Monday.

She and senior lifeguard Rebecca Reynolds saw Osborne's video online this weekend of their coworkers in action.

"We all work really hard, so it shows on the video. They did awesome," Bryant said.

It's a point of view they don’t often get to see for themselves.

"We just have to tell by word of mouth or tell each other about our rescues, but we never really get to see how far out a person was or how well we did something," Reynolds said.

Osborne hopes his video serves as a reminder of the danger of rip currents and strong winds.

"Unless you really could see it, you don't believe it, but it's strong enough. It'll pull you out," Osborne said.