GRANDY, N.C. (WAVY) — One person died and another was injured in boating accident in Currituck County on Thursday afternoon.
Mark Rich with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission says two people left Grandy on a paddle boat and went into the sound.
Rich says the boat started to take on water and capsized. After a while, the two boaters made it back to land, where they were helped by a passerby.
An emergency call about the situation came in at 5:29 p.m.
One of the boaters, 19-year-old Devineni Rahul, of Cary, North Carolina, died.
10 On Your Side was able to track down the man who found the two men and tried to save them.
“The Lord works in mysterious ways, but stuff like that happens. I wanted to go three days earlier and didn’t do it and I went yesterday,” said local waterman Perry Beasley.
Beasley says he didn’t know it then, but God sent him out on the water Thursday for a reason.
He says he was grabbing his blind license and owl decoy when a sound caught his attention.
“I kept hearing that noise, a noise I’d never heard before. I don’t know what it was, if it was instinct or what, but I quit what I was doing and went that way,” said Beasley.
As he got closer he noticed a teal paddle boat that had capsized, bobbing up and down in the water.
“When I got heading towards long point, I seen the man standing up and he was doing his arms like this, and I ran the boat wide open up in there to the marsh,” he said.
It was at that point, Beasley realized the sound he had heard, was actually screams from a man fighting for his life.
“I mean it was ungodly, that’s 1500 yards or more to be able to hear it,” Beasley added.
As he was helping the man, he noticed another person floating in the shallow water with just his head above the waves.
“I jumped down check for a pulse, I’m certified CPR, being a captain, and he had no pulse and I pushed him for CPR and he was already dead, but I done what I could,” he explained.
Beasley says he tried but couldn’t get both of them, so he wrapped up the man that was still alive in jackets, and brought him to shore.
He says he got someone to call 911, and when police arrived, he took them back out there to get the other man’s body.
“I don’t feel I’m a hero, I’m just doing my job. I’d do it for anybody I’d do it again right now,” said Beasley.Officials are working to determine the cause of Rahul’s death.
The other boater has been released from the hospital.
Rich says both boaters were believed to have been in Currituck County on a vacation.
Stay with WAVY.com for updates.
