VIDEO: Hero Florida deputy survives after getting sucked into drainage pipe during rescue operation

Body camera footage shows the terrifying moment a Florida deputy gets sucked into a drainage pipe and is submerged under water while he was trying to save a civilian that was trapped. 

On Friday, at around 1:39 a.m. deputy William Hollingsworth left his car to help a man who was trapped in rising waters, after Pensacola, Florida was hit by severe weather conditions, said Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons in a statement. 

As he was walking toward the victim, the man was swept underwater. Hollingsworth “rushed to his aid without regard for his own safety,” Simmons said in the statement.

However, as he tried to rescue the man, they were both sucked into a drainage pipe that took them underneath a roadway on Highway 98. 

“They traveled nearly 100 feet,” Simmons said. “They eventually resurfaced on the other end of the roadway − lucky to be alive.”                   

Hollingsworth’s body camera captured the terrifying 30 seconds in which they were underwater. The video shows the police officer approaching the victim and then everything turning black, except for some flashes of light.                

“David, can you believe what just happened to us?” Hollingsworth told the other man after they resurfaced from the water on the other side of the roadway. “Just breathe.”

“I almost died,” the man said.

“I almost died, too,” Hollingsworth said.

"Thank you, man, for being there when I [came]out," the man tells Hollingsworth. "When I came out you were right behind me."

The Escambia Sheriff’s Office praised Hollinsworth’s heroic actions, saying they were “an example of the exceptional courage displayed by the men and women of law enforcement every day.”