Last Friday started off as a regular summer day for everyone who had been enjoying their vacation on the beach, but for Noemi Marangoni it was a life-death situation in Sabaudia, a province of Latina, Lazio in central Italy.

She had just started her job as a lifeguard when she performed two life-threatening operations.

The 19-year-old spotted an elderly man go into the water, who later on faced difficulties swimming back to the shore. His wife and son were on their way to save him but they were swept to the sea.

With no “Baywatch” equipment at the moment, as it was yet to arrive, Noemi dived right in.

“I was still dressed in my work uniform when I saw a gentleman who was walking in the water fall into that abyss. The current carried him out to sea and it was clear that he could not swim. I saw his son and his wife dive to get him out of the water, but they too were swept out to sea. There was no time to waste, I dived in fully dressed,” Noemi told Italian news channel TgCom24.

Before she had time to recover, she noticed two other people in difficulty trying to reach the surface.

“I didn’t have time to catch my breath before I saw two young people in difficulty,” she continues, “I dived again. One of the two boys managed to get out of the water by himself, I had to drag the second one.”

To Noemi’s surprise and immediate sacrifice, she had just saved five people in a matter of minutes. She had obtained her lifeguard license last January and this was her first day of work, as she confesses.

“I did a winter course and as soon as the summer season started, I began working for the Blue Work Service cooperative,” she says.

“I had been working in a factory for a month and a half. Last Friday was my first day of work on a public beach.”

Noemi recalled the earlier moments of that Friday morning, which turned out to be an exhausting day.

“In retrospect, it was a very tiring day. I spent all the time asking the swimmers to pay attention, and then one rescue after another, I don’t even know how long it took,” she says. “There was a big current and many holes on the seabed that suddenly made it difficult. I always say to be careful; we often argue with the vacationers who don’t listen to us because they see us as too young.”

In the end, the young girl said that this was all a part of her job and acknowledged the responsibility that comes with it.

“I just did my job, I’m glad everything went well,” she confesses with a smile.