The father saved his daughter and jumped into the sea after falling from the fourth deck of a Disney cruise ship moving from the Bahamas to the US on Sunday afternoon, witnesses say.
The video showed passengers cheering as the two stepped on the water for 10 minutes and were pulled onto the rescue ship.
Witnesses said the girl appeared to have fallen when her father took a photo against the railing. Overboard alerts were broadcast to the ship, and the crew quickly recovered them.
“The ship was moving quickly, so it was moving quickly, so it was crazy that people became small dots in the ocean, and then you lost sight of them,” said passenger Laura Amador.
“After the captain slowed the ship and turned around, they saw them deploy soft ships with the people to get them and save their father and daughter,” she told CBS News, the BBC's US partner.
The identities of the father and daughter are not publicly disclosed. Several US media have described the girl as a child.
Capacity of 4,000 Disney Dream returned to Fort Lauderdale, Florida after sailing around the Bahamas for four days.
In a statement, Disney confirmed that the two passengers had been rescued, but little details were provided as to what happened.
“The crew on the Disney Dream quickly rescued two guests from the water,” a Disney Cruise Line spokesperson said. “We praised the members of the crew for their extraordinary skills and prompt action, ensuring that both guests would return safely to the ship within minutes.
“We saw it, you could see two little things… it was crazy, it was horrifying,” passenger Gar Franz told NBC News, explaining how he witnessed the two of them enter the ocean and almost disappear into the horizon.
The incident took place on the last day of the cruise, and the ship returned to Florida port as usual.
It is rare for passengers to fall off the cruise ship, but rescue is often not successful.
According to a 2019 Cruise Lines International Association report, 25 people fell overboard that year from the cruise ship, with only nine people saved from the water.