Paramotor Pilot Rescues Woman Clinging To Car In South FL Canal: Watch

MIAMI, FL — A Miami real estate agent flying a paramotor Sunday morning spotted a woman clinging to her submerged car in a canal and made an emergency landing to help rescue her.

A paramotor is a motorized device where the pilot wears a lightweight aircraft engine and paraglider wings on their back, according to Paragliding Unlimited. The pilot can launch it on their own, either on level ground or in still air. It can travel between 15 and 45 mph and go as high as 18,000 feet.

Cristiano Piquet shared a video of the rescue to his Instagram page. (Watch his full video below.)

“I’m flying with my friend Sunday before church like we always do, and I’m flying and I see a woman holding for her life,” he said in the video. “Then I land in the middle of nowhere and I come to rescue her and save her.”

Piquet, who records all his flights with a GoPro, told the Miami Herald that he was flying over water north of Homestead around 8 a.m. and spotted the woman when he turned around to get a shot of an alligator.

“I turned around to get a shot of the alligator, and I saw a car under the water,” he said. “I flew closer to the car, and I saw a woman on top.”

His video shows the woman yelling for help.

“Oh my god! I fell with my car in here,” she’s heard saying.

After landing near the canal, Piquet told WSVN that he and his friend called out to her, asking if she needed help.

A resident who lived nearby rushed to help the woman on the bank of the canal closest to her, which Piquet also captured on video. He assisted by calling out instructions to them during the rescue.

His video also shows Miami-Dade Fire Rescue units that responded to the scene.

Toward the end of the video, Piquet said, “Hey, we pretty much saved this lady’s life today.”

He added, “Mission accomplished.”

Watch Piquet's video of the rescue: