A good samaritan from Maryland has been honored with a ‘Thunderbirds’ flight.
On May 2, Jonathan Bauer and his daughter were running errands when a truck lost control and flipped onto the guardrail.
As a result, Bauer’s car was hit in the multi-vehicle collision at Route 90 bridge in Ocean City.
Bauer’s checked his daughter immediately and after finding out that she was okay, he noticed a little girl struggling in the Assawoman Bay.
Without hesitation, Bauer jumped off the 25ft bridge and saved the little girl’s life.
After his life-saving efforts, the Air Force Thunderbirds recognized him as their ‘hometown hero’ and took him on the flight of his life on June 19th.
“I popped up, swam over to the girl, lifted her out of the water, and looked at her,” Bauer said at a press conference. “Her mouth was open, her eyes were semi-open and then I put her against my shoulder very high and aggressively patted her on the back.”
Shortly, the little girl spat up water and they were picked up by a nearby boat and reached by first responders, who also praised Bauer for his heroic act.
The Air Force then decided to honor Bauer’s efforts and shared the footage of his flight and photos on their Facebook account.
“His selfless act shows the best America has to offer, and we’re proud to have honored him with a flight today,” the Thunderbirds captioned the post.
Ryan Whittington, a firefighter, and medic at Ocean City Fire Department told CNN that he bravely jumped and saved the drowning girl without hesitation.
“He just jumped into action,” Whittington told CNN. “He saved a 23-month-old child.”
“There’s no doubt in our mind that if he had not done what he did when he did it that we would be having a different headline to this story.”
Meanwhile, Bauer’s daughter told Today that watching his father jump off the bridge was the ‘scariest part’ of her life, and his wife Wendi revealed that he is actually afraid of heights.