Two tourists came to the rescue of a Dallas family trapped underwater after their plane capsized. INSIDE EDITION has the details.
A family from Dallas, Texas is saying they've been given a second chance at life after a spectacular plane crash and rescue at sea.
A sightseeing sea plane that was carrying the family, had been flying near an island off the coast of Honduras. Suddenly, the plane stalled, crashed and capsized. The pilot and Andy Atkins, a lawyer, managed to unbuckle themselves. However, his wife Jennie and their four-year-old son, Logan, remained trapped.
The two heroes happened to be diving nearby. Without a moments notice, the brave vacationers dove into the ocean and pulled out the mother and child.
On the Today show, Andy Atkins described the moments of terror as he frantically tried to find his wife and son.
"The first time I dove down I couldn't find anything. I very quickly came back up and dove down again, and she pushed the baby with her last bit of consciousness back to me. As I brought him to the surface, there she was too, almost at exactly the same time," Atkins said.
One of the rescuers, retired airline pilot Larry Forseth, spoke to INSIDE EDITION's Paul Boyd via skype. "What was going through your mind as you approached this plane that had just crashed?" Boyd asked.
"I knew we had to get there very quickly. I knew that seconds can make all of the difference between life and death. Seeing that plane inverted, my first thought was, "Wow. Someone's gotta be trapped underwater," Forseth said.
After the rescue, Atkins' wife, Jennie, was in bad shape.
"Her lips are blue, her eyes are rolled back, she didn't appear breathing. I thought she was dead. Then a yacht showed up with a doctor on board, they had oxygen that they adminstered to her," Forseth recalled.
Boyd experienced what it's like to be trapped underwater inside a plane via a flight rescue simulator.
In those first moments upside down and under water, it's easy to become disoriented. Boyd mistakenly swam to the exit door on the wrong side of the plane.
The key is to wait as long as possible to take the last breath before releasing the seat belt and pushing the exit door.
It certainly helps to have strangers nearby, willing to risk their own lives to save yours.
