BALTIMORE — Baltimore aviation police officers Andre Smith Jr. and Craig Hoover have seen it all from Baltimore's skies, from house fires, to stolen cars, robberies and more. As part of BPD's aviation unit or Foxtrot, they spend hours patrolling the city airborne every day.
WATCH these BPD officers revive this 25-year-old
But on Saturday night, they found themselves on the ground.
"I'm going to put the helicopter down this guy looks like he's not breathing. He's not moving, he's in cardiac arrest," Smith can be heard telling dispatch in a video released by the department Wednesday afternoon.
WATCH: Foxtrot officers recount rare helicopter landing to rescue drowned man
A drowning victim had been reported at the Walter P. Carter pool in North Baltimore. No bystanders who had helped rescue the man from the water knew CPR.
Meanwhile, the closest units on the ground were several minutes away responding to a fight on Falls Road when the call came in.
Smith knew that in a case like this, every second counts.
"I said if you can get it down, let's take it down," he recalled." [Craig] had me on the ground before I could even make the radio calls that we were landed," Smith explained.
"A lot of times we have say, an officer shot or something, we want to land and help them. We usually can't because there's no place to land," Hoover said. "By the grace of God we had a landing area and had the right person in the helicopter that was willing and able to do CPR."
Tactical flight officer Smith, a former beat cop and lifeguard, sprang into action once landed.
He can been seen on video running to the pool's front gate, where he had just enough room to squeeze through to administer life-saving measures in a matter of seconds.
"I believe his name was Sean and as I was doing the chest compressions, I just kept, you know, telling him I said: 'Come on, come on, Sean, stay with me!' And then after about a minute of chest compressions he came back," Smith said.
The pair have been praised as heroes, but for them it was just another night in the office.
"That's what we took an oath to do and I don't know if I would say we're heroes. We're people that did our job and we're happy to do it again if we have to," Hoover said.
Pool hopping is a common and oftentimes dangerous problem in Baltimore. Smith says, he's also noticed many of the renovated pools like Walter P. Carter are also deeper than most expect.
"What have we learned? Don't break into the pool and go take a CPR class," Smith recalled what he told a bystander who dove in to save the drowning victim.
The 25-year-old has since been released from the hospital and is expected to be okay.
An outcome, only made possible by having the right people in the right place at the right time. And proof that, Hoover says, BPD's investment into the Foxtrot unit continues to pay off.
"A drone couldn't have done what we did," he said.
