A U.S. Coast Guard swimmer is being hailed a hero after rescuing 169 people from flash flooding at Camp Mystic in Texas during a natural disaster that has devastated communities across the state.

At about 7 a.m. on Friday, Scott Ruskan, 26, was on duty at an air station in Corpus Christi, Texas, when his team was called in to respond to raging floods in central Texas.

During an interview on Good Morning America on Monday, Ruskan said he “just happened to be on the duty crew” when the call came in, and treacherous weather conditions turned what should have been a 60-minute flight from Corpus Christi to Hunt into an hours-long ordeal.

After navigating a difficult journey, the team established a triage site at Camp Mystic, a century-old all-girls camp along the Guadalupe River, and stationed Ruskan there, while helicopters landed and took off to transport survivors to safety.

Camp Mystic was ravaged by the flooding, which claimed the lives of 27 campers, including children.

“I kind of discovered I was the only person there as far as first responders go. So I had about 200, kids mostly. All scared, terrified, cold, having probably the worst day of their life. And I just kind of needed to triage them, get them to a higher level of care, and get them off the flood zone,” he told Good Morning America.

Ruskan worked with members of the U.S. Army National Guard to execute the rescue.

The young first responder said the team established two landing zones, one on an archery field and another on a football field. Ruskan would guide groups of mostly children and some adults to the helicopters, which would then fly them out to secondary safe zones with more resources.

Ruskan finished his training with the coast guard just six months ago; the Texas floods were his first rescue mission.

“Coast guard rescue swimmers get some of the highest-level training in the world. So really just kind of relied on that, just knowing that any of the rescue swimmers in the coast guard would have done the exact same, if not better than me,” he said.

Ruskan also said he felt motivated to do his job by the trust the children put in him.

“They don’t really know what my experience is or my rank or my age … they just know, ‘Hey this guy is a professional, and he’s here to help us.’ And I kind of had to live up to that standard,” he said.

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While Ruskan has been praised for offering a glimpse of hope to affected Texans during an unprecedented natural disaster, he says “the kids on the ground” are the real heroes.

“Those guys are heroic, and they were dealing with some of the worst times of their lives, and they were staying strong. That helped inspire me to get in there and help them out,” he added.

Ruskan told the New York Post that rescuers were able to get the majority of people trapped in Camp Mystic out, but that there were still many missing and that the mission was far from over.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz wrote on Facebook on Tuesday that he had met with Ruskan and he was “eternally grateful” for his service.

The death toll from the floods surpassed 100 on Monday, as search and rescue teams continued to look for survivors, including 10 Camp Mystic girls and one counsellor who are still unaccounted for.

“We have been in communication with local and state authorities who are tirelessly deploying extensive resources to search for our missing girls,” the camp said in a statement.

Searchers have found the bodies of 84 people, including 28 children, in the county home to Camp Mystic and several other summer camps, officials said.

Among the deceased is the camp’s owner, Richard Eastland.

— With files from The Associated Press