This is the moment a boy was found inside a bubble adrift in a Brazilian sea.
Video footage showed a person on a boat strapping a rope around the bubble and dragging it to the shore at Lázaro Beach in Ubatuba, São Paulo, where the child, who is around eight years old, was reunited with his parents.
Rafael do Prado told Metropoles news outlet that the child was in the bubble playing in the beach when its cable snapped and got dragged further out to sea.
He was riding his boat with his children when he spotted the giant plastic ball and was curious to know if anyone was it when he navigated towards it and saw the ball inside.
He spoke to the child and kept him calm while he waited for his friend, Welington Junior, to arrive in a speedboat that was better equipped to handle the rescue mission.
‘I was worried about whether he was able to breathe or not because the buoy is dangerous,’ do Prado recalled.
‘There is a certain amount of time that you can breathe inside it. I calmed him down, and that was when my daughter started filming.’
Junior initially thought about opening the bubble, but was warned not open its zipper.
A child, who is around eight years old, was found trapped inside a plastic bubble was went adrift and found floating in the sea at Lázaro Beach in Ubatuba, a city in the southeastern Brazilian state of São Paulo on Christmas Eve
Rescuers though about opening the bubble through its zipper and then decided it was best to strapped a rope to it and drag it to the beach shore
‘I was afraid it would deflate with him inside,’ Junior said.
‘We put a rope through the bubble and dragged it as fast as we could, because we couldn’t go too fast, or we could hurt the boy.’
The Maritime Firefighters Group warned beachgoers about the dangers of using bubbles and other floatable devices at the beach when they are more suitable for pools.
‘This type of toy is new to us on the beaches,’ captain Karoline Magalhães said.
The rescuers sailed back to the shore at Lázaro Beach at an adequate speed to prevent the bubble from deflating
A man on board a boat was filmed strapping a cable to the bubble before they dragged it with the child in it
‘It comes from swimming pools and now we are starting to have certain types of problems because this ball is easily dragged by the wind.’
The fire department official added that the bubble the boy was found in provides ‘a false sense of security.’
‘For every three deaths at sea, a drowning process begins with floating objects,’ Magalhães said.
‘Whether it’s a surfboard, an inflatable mattress, or these buoys, floating objects at sea are not safe.’