Dolphins are not only very smart animals, but they can also feel what other people are feeling very deeply. A lot of stories say that dolphins have helped people in dangerous situations by giving them a fin, like warning great white sharks or keeping kids from dying.

The most recent case happened in Ireland, where a group of dolphins helped save a surfer who got stuck in the water near Castlegregory in County Kerry.

Lifeboat volunteers from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) found the swimmer, a guy in his 30s from County Down who has not been named. He had been missing for more than 12 hours on August 22.

The team did a full search because his clothes had been found earlier that day on Castlegregory beach. After a long day of searching, around 8:30 p.m., the lifeboat team found a group of dolphins swimming around the swimmer about 2.5 miles out to sea. The person was “hypothermic and exhausted,” but he knew it. He was taken to the hospital right away and is now feeling better.

People who came to help him said he was going to swim five miles from Castlegregory Beach to Mucklaghmore Rock. He was cold and stuck, though, and had only his swimming shorts on. Later, conservationists found out that the animals that were surrounding him were members of the Moray Firth bottlenose dolphin population in Scotland.

The swimmer was lucky that the group, who have been seen in the area since 2019, was there for him when he needed them. Because the pods were so big, they were able to help find the lost swimmer. A person was finally found where “a lot of dolphins were around,” according to Finbarr O’Connell, coxswain of the RNLI. He went on, “Who knows, maybe they helped him in some way.”

A group of dolphins found a lost swimmer near Castlegregory beach in County Kerry, Ireland, and left them there for 12 hours.