Drone captures moment man is knocked off waterfall in flash flooding
This is the heart stopping moment a group of tourists was knocked from the top of a waterfall by a sudden surge of water in Hawaii.
A drone managed to film Renee Lusano and five of her friends as they stood perched at the edge of the waterfall enjoying the stunning rainforest.
Writing on her blog, Ms Lusano said the group was on a bushwalk in Hana, Hawaii, when they decided to trek to a swimming hole beneath the waterfall.
Ms Lusano even brought along a drone to capture what she thought was going to be a breathtaking experience.
But things did not go to plan.
“After a longer than expected hike, we heard the waterfall and arrived at a small to medium flowing stream,” Ms Lusano wrote on her blog.
Ms Lusano said she prepared her drone and sent it flying up overhead as her friends climbed to the top of the waterfall and prepared to jump.
Unbeknownst to the group, however, they were about to be inundated as flash floods hit Maui County.
“Then suddenly without warning there was an enormous rush of water coming over the waterfall,” she wrote.
“What caught my eye was the massive volume of water at the bottom of the fall churning over the surface of the pool, created by the power and volume of water that suddenly appeared.”
Back down on the bottom of the beach, Ms Lusano said she began to panic as she could no longer see her friend Sean.
“There was no other option in my mind than that I had just seen our friend disappear and be killed, and there was nothing we could do about it,” she wrote.
The intense wave of water that knocked Sean off the waterfall is captured with chilling clarity by the drone.
Thankfully none of the adventurous friends were injured in the torrent of water, and were rescued by a helicopter after climbing to higher ground.
According to Ms Lusano the rescue crews were happy to get the call that day as “this was a successful rescue rather than one where they had to retrieve bodies as they unfortunately often must do”.
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