Dad, Daughter Fight for Lives After Getting Caught in Rip Tide

The family, vacationing from Texas, was in the water using their GoPro when Derrick Johns and his daughter Erynn were caught in the quick moving current.

A family swimming at a Nantucket beach captured a frightening close call with a rip tide on camera — and got back to shore safely — thanks to a selfie stick. 

The family, vacationing from Texas, was in the water using a GoPro when Derrick Johns and his daughter Erynn found themselves caught in the quick moving current.

Derrick Johns urged his daughter to swim as soon as he started to feel the current. The two kept fighting the fierce current, but it proved to be too much.

“It was sucking me out so hard. I was trying everything," Erynn Johns said. "I had to swim and it kept sucking us back out.”

At one point, they used the selfie stick attached to their GoPro camera in their efforts to stay safe. Another beachgoer and two lifeguards jumped in and helped them back to shore.

"I think if I hadn't have had that stick, and my dad being able to pull me back in, that I would have drifted out way further," Erynn Johns said.

While they were glad to emerge unscathed, the danger of the scenario wasn't lost on the pair. 

"I'm a former Marine and did a few tours overseas and I’ve never felt that level of fatigue or fear," Derrick Johns said. 

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