{"id":266576,"date":"2025-11-02T08:38:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T08:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/266576\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T08:38:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T08:38:09","slug":"teen-called-hero-after-rescuing-man-drivers-in-boca-raton-flooding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/266576\/","title":{"rendered":"Teen called hero after rescuing man, drivers in Boca Raton flooding"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text text--small text--normal text--primary\">Published:\u00a0November 1, 2025 at 10:23 PM<\/p>\n<p>Teen called hero after rescuing man, drivers in Boca Raton flooding <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">BOCA RATON, Fla. \u2014 A Boca Raton teenager is being praised as a hero after rescuing an older man and several drivers trapped in floodwaters during last weekend\u2019s heavy rain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Thomas Ruzzano said he was leaving a movie theater Sunday night when he found the parking garage already filled with about two feet of water. Outside, streets across the city were flooded and cars were stranded.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cI got out of my car and saw all these people struggling,\u201d Ruzzano said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">One of them, an older man, was stuck in his seatbelt as water rose above his shoulders. Ruzzano and others helped free him and pulled him to safety.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cWe unbuckled him, got him out and made sure he was fine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Ruzzano went on to help several more people escape their flooded cars.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">When asked about being called a hero, he said, \u201cIt\u2019s very fortunate how things played out. I\u2019m just happy everyone\u2019s okay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Heavy rain caused widespread flooding across Boca Raton, Pompano Beach and Deerfield Beach, with videos showing submerged cars, flooded hotels and residents forced from their homes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Ruzzano said he simply did what anyone would do.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cIt was the least I could do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body__copyright\">Copyright 2025 by WPLG Local10.com &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Byron Tollefson\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/https:\/\/author-service-images-prod-us-east-1.publishing.aws.arc.pub\/wplginc\/b58c08f2-f400-4245-95df-.jpeg\"  width=\"100\" height=\"100\"\/>Byron Tollefson<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-author-bio__author-description\">Byron Tollefson joined Local 10 News as a reporter in July 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published:\u00a0November 1, 2025 at 10:23 PM Teen called hero after rescuing man, drivers in Boca Raton flooding BOCA&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-266576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}