Scott Ruskan had never been on a rescue mission when he boarded a helicopter to find a crowd of about 200 campers stranded by deadly flooding on July 4, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

The team deployed around 7 a.m. Friday from Corpus Christi, about 200 miles south of where the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, Texas, had risen from about 3 feet to nearly 30 feet. Floodwaters in the area had swept through and battered several youth camps on the river banks — including Camp Mystic, the summer camp where they were headed.