Man Who Saved Family From Rip Current Off Nantucket Coast Identified

NANTUCKET (CBS) -- The man who helped save a family from a rip current off the Nantucket coast on Tuesday has been identified as Tommy Vach.

What started out as a family catching waves together in the ocean quickly took a turn for the dangerous.

16-year-old Erynn Johns and her father Derrick got caught in a rip current at Surfside Beach.

She was holding her selfie stick with a Go-Pro camera attached and captured the whole thing. You can hear him encourage her to swim back to shore.

That's when they got into trouble.

When you're getting pulled out to sea, you are not supposed to fight the current but instead try and swim parallel to the beach to get out of it.

"I knew that but when you see your daughter heading off to sea, you don't think in rational terms at the moment," Derrick says.

Fortunately, Derrick's wife saw them struggling and screamed for help.

Vach first pulled Erynn to safety, and then went back for her father.

"When I got back to the beach and in that ambulance, I had 14 percent oxygen level in my blood," he said. "I had about 20 seconds left."

The Johns want other families to learn from their scare and stay close to shore.

"I've never felt anything like that," says Derrick. "I was a marine and did tours overseas during war time, and I've never had that level of fatigue or fear."

Erynn's father says he is thankful that his daughter didn't drop the selfie stick because it allowed him to hang onto her in the water and then push her toward the shore.

The family says they are grateful for Vach's help that day.