Surfer hero describes pandemoniac tableau as boat’s capsize on reef leads to dramatic rescue: “I thought they were going to die for sure. The scene was just carnage.”

"It was such a dangerous position..."

It is often said, and very often by famous podcaster Scott Bass, that “surfers are the worst” but in my experience upon this blue globe surfers are generally “pretty ok” and if in some sort of oceanic trouble “valuable assets.”

Well, the old “surfers are valuable assets” adage played out, once again, on Australia’s south east coast last weekend when a boat capsized in the surf zone off Waniora Point in Bulli. Sean Brokman, 32, was out when he saw the mess.

“A few men were holding onto the boat without life jackets and they were obviously in serious trouble,” he told Yahoo! News. He and five others paddled over, assessed the situation and realized there were more people trapped inside.

Selflessly all of them ditched their boards and began diving under.

“It was such a dangerous position. If we had been hit by a wave we could have so easily been caught under there ourselves. The visibility was poor because of all the fuel and debris in the water but by some miracle I could see an air pocket in the bow of the boat with some legs, so I just went up and plucked that guy out.”

The unconscious man was full of water and sunk immediately after being pulled out but Brokman was “somehow managed to grab him and kick our way to the surface — I don’t know how.”

Another brave surfer, Sebastian James, meanwhile freed three more trapped men all by himself.

At this point in the harrowing tale Australian lifesavers on sleds arrived and began hauling the victims to shore where emergency teams had set up CPR stations. Three had gone into cardiac arrest and were rushed to nearby hospitals while a fourth was unable to be revived but it would have been a total loss if not for the selflessness, the strength of surfers.

The best people on earth.