He had just finished a swim, and was taking a video on his phone of the water when he heard it.
"I started recording and then I heard yelling. When I put the phone down, that's when I heard, 'Help' and I knew it was serious," said Payton.
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Payton jumped back in the water to save the man he says he saw drowning.
"The minute I got to him he was going for his last breath and I grabbed him right before he went under water," said Payton. "As he's going under I grabbed him, and if it was a second or a few seconds later he would've been under."
He brought the man to shore.
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Payton said, "When I got him to the end I said, 'Are you ok?' He said, 'Yes, thank you.' I said, 'Well, I have to wait out here for a moment anyway because I have to regain my breath, because I swam back and forth.'"
Payton didn't catch the man's name, but did take a picture with him. It was Payton's first time at the Blue Lagoon. It was a trip that turned into him being a hero for a stranger.
"I look at life a lot differently because life could be gone in one second and one moment," said Payton.
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