Real-Life Mermaids Rescue Struggling Scuba Diver in California: 'It Was a Fairytale'

Julie Andersen; Elena Claramunt

A group of real-life mermaids was practicing life-saving rescue drills in open water near Catalina Island, California, when they heard a man cry for help.

"We were already in rescue mode," says Elle Jiminez, 33, who was teaching an advanced PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) Mermaid class on Oct. 23. "It was just such crazy timing."

Jimenez, along with one of her students, Elaina Garcia, wearing mermaid mono-fins, swam out to help as fast as they could, along with safety diver Great Chin Burger, another mermaid who was wearing bi-fins that day.

The three women found three scuba divers; one, Pablo Avila, was unconscious, foaming at the mouth and not breathing. They worked together to help remove the 73-year-old diver's gear, give him rescue breaths in the water and help swim him to shore.

Jimenez describes the experience as "really amazing and magical."

"It was a fairytale afterward," Jimenez says. But in the moment, she says, it was "pretty crazy."

Long-Time Dive Buddies

Javier Claramunt, 62, met Pablo Avila taking a scuba class 46 years ago. The two have been diving together ever since.

They're both experienced scuba divers: Claramunt became a dive master, then a dive instructor and eventually the director of a scuba school. Avila was once the president of a scuba club, Claramunt tells PEOPLE.

"We've been doing this for a while," he says.

Julie Andersen

In October, Avila traveled from his home in Argentina to visit Claramunt at his home in Mission Vieja, California. On Oct. 23, the two men, along with Claramunt's son, Joshua, went scuba diving off Casino Point, a non-profit, underwater dive park at Catalina Island.

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Claramunt says he checked everyone's pressure gauges on their oxygen tanks and decided it was time to go to the surface. He signaled to his son, his son signaled back. His friend was still exploring. "I went behind him and I pulled him," Claramunt says. "I asked him to go up, and he agreed. That's the last thing he remembers."

Claramunt thinks Avila went too fast on the ascent, and maybe held his breath, or perhaps there were issues with the scuba gear he'd rented.

Shortly after they surfaced, Claramunt saw foam coming out of Avila's mouth.

"He said, 'I can't breathe,' " Claramunt remembers — then Avila lost consciousness.

"I immediately grabbed him, removed his mask, turned him around, cleaned his mouth," Claramunt remembers.

He and his son started pulling Avila toward shore, screaming for help and asking people to call 911.

Claramunt estimates they were about 80 yards from the stairs into the water when the three mermaids arrived.

Mermaid Rescue

As soon as 26-year-old scuba instructor and mermaid photographer Elaina Garcia heard the cries for help, "I took off," she tells PEOPLE. "I sprinted as fast as I could in the mermaid tail."

When she reached the three scuba divers, she saw the foam coming from Avila's mouth.

"The situation was very dire," Garcia tells PEOPLE. "It was pretty serious. He was totally unconscious, totally not breathing."

Darren Leonard/NATIV Productions

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"After I gave him the first [rescue] breath, I started counting," she says. As a certified scuba instructor, she's been trained to do water rescues in full scuba gear.

Since she was only wearing a mermaid tail and a mask, she just had to remove the diver's gear.

"I was able to be very quick," she says. "I gave him a breath, I unclipped some of his gear."

Her fellow mermaids, Elle Jimenez and Great Chin Berger, dropped the diver's weights. "I gave him another breath," Garcia remembers. "I gave him another breath and then I kept swimming."

Claramunt appreciated her help, he says.

"She did a very good job," Claramunt says. "It was a relief for me. Because when you're rescuing a person, if you do both the CPR and the swimming, then you don't do anything right. It's a lot better in between two people, one doing the CPR and the other one towing."

Emergency rescue personnel took Avila to a hyperbaric chamber to treat his aeroembolism.

"I did not think he would make it," Garcia says. "When you see someone that's no pulse, not breathing. I think it's pretty rare that you come back from that."

The near-death experience led to Avila reconnecting with his estranged daughter, and even meeting his grandchild, Claramunt says.

"This is a miracle," Claramunt says. "My wife talked to his daughter and told her, 'Look, your daddy almost died. Seriously, he was passed out with his heart stopped, so you guys got to leave the dumb things aside.' So that worked out, and he had the best time possible with his daughter. So I always say God turns crucifixions into resurrections."

Claramunt adds: "This was a crisis that nobody wants, but thank god it turned out well, and then it was the catalyst to make his stay here very positive at the end."

The mermaids were happy and relieved to see Avila alive and well on the local news.

"He looked like a corpse and after seeing him recovered, he just looked so happy. We're just so happy that he gets to live a longer life," Jimenez says. "It's been really, really amazing and magical."