It was a typical Saturday afternoon in Jacksonville, Florida. Down at the Fort Caroline Athletic Association baseball field, a youth baseball game was happening.
The next batter was up. He was focused on the pitcher and was intent on hitting that ball.
He swung that bat but did he hit the ball? Or did the catcher catch it?
No one could tell.
In fact, no one that was there knows what happened with that ball for sure because the play was interrupted.
A storm was headed for home plate.
A cloud of dust, like a small tornado, rose out of nowhere and disrupted the game.
A dust devil was forming.
What the heck is a dust devil? Dust devils are small, rotating columns of air that are clearly visible because of the dust and dirt accumulated while spinning.
Dust devils form when one part of the ground heats more quickly than the grassy part of the ground.
“The hotter part of the ground heats up the air above it. This air is hotter than the air around and above it and so rises, punching through the cooler air above and creating a vertical column of warm, rising air. Around this cool air that has been knocked out of the way circulates vertically. If a gust comes along, it can blow this arrangement on its side, forming a dust devil,” Andrea Thompson, associate editor at Scientific American, explained.
The dust devil formed on the home plate.
The batter, catcher, and umpire were still on it. It was the first time teenage umpire Aidan Wiles has ever seen a dust devil.
He has been an umpire and baseball player for several years and has witnessed a lot of weather conditions.
He has seen the ball spin many times but has never seen the air around the ball spin.
The dust devil drew up several pieces of rock in its formation that scratched Aidan on the chest and stomach areas.
He stepped away before noticing the catcher.
“At first I was freaked out myself until I saw him trapped in it,” Aidan shared. “So, I decided to run in there and grab [him] out of it.”
The catcher is 7-year-old Bauer Zoya.
He had no idea what was happening or what to do. He said he couldn’t breathe in the dust devil.
Suddenly, something pulled him out of the dust devil and he discovered it was Aidan.
“I knew his little body couldn’t handle it, so I just rushed in and got him,” Aidan said.
Bauer’s father splashed water on Bauer’s face after he was pulled out of the dust devil.
What had lasted only a few seconds for Bauer in real life felt like minutes for him. He had to rest before he could check back into the game.
But get back to the game he did.
Bauer didn’t see Aidan again that day but he plans to thank him the next time he does.
The teen saved his life.
See Aidan rescue Bauer from the throws of a dust devil in the nick of time in the video below!
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