NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- Nicole Carni had finally taken a day off from her high-pressure job as director of the Southeast Volusia Advertising Director and New Smyrna Beach Visitor's Center to serve as a chaperone for her 6-year-old boy, Allario, and his Samsula Academy classmates on a Friday morning trip to Canaveral National Seashore.When she heard about a stranded dolphin on the beach, she and the group decided to check it out.
Once on scene off the Third Avenue Beach Approach, Carni's maternal instincts kicked in and she ran to the dolphin to help several others provide immediate care.
After the morning's adventure at Canaveral where she and the other adults with the children held sea turtles, the rescue of a rare deep-sea dolphin became dramatic; something that would become a nearly daylong odyssey of filling up buckets of water, holding and squeezing IV's and gently pouring water on this wondrous Risso's dolphin.
A devout Christian who routinely wears a large cross, it dawned on Carni that she was more than in the right place and time: This was her living and breathing her tourism management career, literally. And like the politics that come with the position of overseeing a high profile job, this dramatic rescue was no cakewalk.
While Carni was doing her share with five or six other strangers on the beach to save this 400-pound male dolphin, she got walloped on her right elbow by the 10-foot long mammal. And though she felt the stinging pain, she stuck with it.
Several hundred beachgoers watched the rescue efforts on New Smyrna Beach Friday.
While hydrating the dolphin by pouring water on it, Carni herself, was thirsty in the hot Florida sun -- even under a large canopy, her light complexion brightly reddened and her face flushed. During the five-hour ordeal, she managed to down one bottle of water.
While hydrating the dolphin by pouring water on it, Carni herself, was thirsty in the hot Florida sun -- even under a large canopy, her light complexion brightly reddened and her face flushed. During the five-hour ordeal, she managed to down one bottle of water.
"It's not as if I could just sit there and drink more," she said.
It is that kind of commitment that Carni has brought to the tourism post for which her board hired her earlier this summer after serving as its chair for several years.
Just three days earlier, Carni held an open house at the newly remodeled Visitors Center on State Road 44 that drew 250 people. But instead of business attire, Carni found herself standing and kneeling on the hard-sand surface in water-soaked casual summer attire, to help this beached and sickly dolphin.
While NSBNews.net instantly recognized who she was, Carni was low key, just like several others content to let the other media put the spotlight on the group effort.
Carni's instinct to jump right in and help in a crisis has become a refrain in New Smyrna Beach.
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Mayor Adam Barringer, lower left in the water, helps two others rescue an elderly motorist who careened into the Indian River after apparently hitting the gas pedal instead of her brakes following a motor vehicle accident. The mayor was at an awards ceremony for New Smyrna Beach police at the Brannon Center when an announcement was made that a car was in the river. He ran out and jumped in after taking off his watch, jacket and shoes.
NSBNEWS.net video by Sera King / Mayor Barringer speaks to NSB NEWS about the situation following a City Commission meeting.
Two years ago, then rookie Mayor Adam Barringer jumped into the frigid November waters of the Intracoastal Waterway, along with two other men to rescue an elderly motorist who accidentally got her foot stuck on the gas pedal and crashed through a fence near the Brannon Center.
As the car began sinking, Barringer and the other two men got the woman safely out and carried her back to shore.
Like the mayor, Carni sees situations like these as a reflection of the character of this seaside community.
"New Smyrna Beach is a special place so it makes sense that we've got people in New Smyrna Beach," she said.
"New Smyrna Beach is a special place so it makes sense that we've got people in New Smyrna Beach," she said.
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