A Florida deputy is receiving praise for a “badass” moment of heroism caught on tape, as he jumped on a runaway boat traveling over 40 miles per hour after its driver fell off.
On July 30, Pinellas County Deputy Travis Fernandes’s body camera captured his pursuit of a vessel cruising wantonly through Tampa Bay — several miles east of St. Petersburg, FL, according to the Miami Herald — with his colleague, Deputy Jillian Constant, maneuvering their own craft up to the side of the loose vehicle. According to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, the two officers answered a call from the U.S. Coast Guard to help try and take control of the boat.
“The driver had fallen off and was rescued by a Good Samaritan,” the Sheriff’s Office wrote on social media. “The Coast Guard attempted to deploy prop fowling devices to stop the vessel but they were unsuccessful.”
According to the Sheriff’s Office, the boat was going about 41 mph on a curved path, and Deputy Constant matched its speed. On the tape, Deputy Fernandes is heard telling her: “You got it. I don’t care about getting wet, you got it,” before she pulled up to the runaway boat.
At just the right moment, Fernandes mounted the railing of his craft and leaped onto the civilian boat below, quickly moving to its steering wheel and decelerating.
After the deputy stopped the vehicle, the Coast Guard vessel caught up, and one of its crew remarked, “That was pretty badass.”
The Sheriff’s Office had some fun sharing the bodycam video on Facebook, adding Van Halen’s chart-topping song “Jump” as background music and adding title cards that said: “If you don’t want this to happen to you… Always connect your kill switch lanyard.”
In the caption of the video, the law enforcement agency quipped: “Yes Deputy Fernandes does his own stunts.”
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