The team deployed around 7 a.m. Friday from Corpus Christi, about 200 miles south of where the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, Texas, had risen from about 3 feet to nearly 30 feet. Floodwaters in the area had swept through and battered several youth camps on the river banks — including Camp Mystic, the summer camp where they were headed.

Ruskin told Good Morning America he has been a rescue swimmer for only "about a year" and had been fully trained for just six months