Prince William Saves Drowning Girl in Helicopter Rescue

Prince Charming is no longer cornering the market on rescuing damsels in distress.

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Britain’s Prince William took part in the life-saving rescue of a 16-year-old girl Thursday, CNN reports. William, a Royal Air Force pilot, had just landed a helicopter as part of an RAF Search and Rescue Force exercise, when he and the crew got word of a person in trouble.

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The crew took just 38 seconds to reach the point off the coast of Wales where the girl and a friend had been body-boarding before being caught in a rip current. The friend was been rescued by a surfer, but the girl was still in the water, and appeared exhausted when the crew arrived. 

"We never know what we'll face when we're called out,” said the crew’s paramedic, Master Aircrew "Harry" Harrison. “Sometimes it's just a twisted ankle or a broken bone, but this was one rescue where we truly did arrive in the nick of time and managed to save this young girl's life.”

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Both girls were flown to a hospital in Bangor, north Wales. After the rescue, the girl Prince William's crew rescued said she thought she was going to drown.

A torrent of messages from admirers of the newly minted hero have appeared on Twitter since the rescue, including some still sore over recent comments Justin Bieber made about William's thinning hairline. 

"Prince Will rescues a girl from drowning, what did you do today Bieber aside from giving jerky interviews?" one William fan wrote.  

"Prince William rescued a drowning teenager in a helicopter rescue off the coast of Wales. Your move, Ryan Gosling," another wrote. 

Prince William has been stationed on the Welsh Island of Anglesey since 2010, where he lives with his wife, Kate Middleton.