A U.S. Coast Guard rescue crew pulled a 12-year-old North Texas boy from the Gulf of Mexico Tuesday after he was swept several hundred yards out to sea.
The boy, who told his rescuers he was from the Dallas area, was floating on an inner tube near Crystal Beach on Bolivar Peninsula, up the coast from Galveston, according to a news release by the Coast Guard.
The current pulled the boy 300 to 400 yards away from shore, according to the Coast Guard.
"He was very scared," Coast Guard Pilot Rodney Ross told NBC DFW sister station KPRC Tuesday. "He told us he was out there for about an hour trying to paddle back, but he wasn't making very good headway."
The helicopter was on scene about 10 minutes after being notified of the boy's location, the Coast Guard noted.
The flight mechanic lowered the rescue swimmer to the water and hoisted the boy to safety.
"Unfortunately some bad decisions left him stranded, but he contributed to his own rescue by making the wise decision to stay with his raft instead of trying to swim back to shore," said Lt. Michael Gibson, a pilot aboard the helicopter. "This gave us a big target to spot and made it much easier to effect a rescue."
