Boy, 5, swept away by Hurricane Dorian after father puts him on roof to save him from sharks

The father of a 5-year-old boy in the Bahamas is grieving after his son was swept into shark-infested waters by Hurricane Dorian, the Nassau Guardian reports.

Adrian Farrington, 38, of Murphy Town in the Abaco island, told the newspaper that he and his son, Adrian Jr., were trying to survive the Category 5 storm when he noticed sharks in the floodwaters.

"My leg was numb, but I was still trying to stay afloat with my son," he recalled. "After about an hour of treading water and bleeding, I noticed … some fins swimming along the houses."

Farrington said he put the child on a roof to keep him away from the water, which had already reached the roof's level. As the 5-year-old cried, Farrington attempted to lift himself onto the roof by using his elbow, but things took a turn for the worse.

"Before I could sit on the roof to hold him, the gust from the hurricane dragged him across the roof back into the surge on the next side," the father said. "I still could remember him reaching for me and calling me, 'Daddy.'"

Farrington then reportedly pushed through debris in a frantic effort to save his son. He dove underwater to see if he could reach Adrian Jr. but was unable to find him.

"I was like feeling to see if I could feel some kind of cloth, some kind of clothes, some kind of skin, flesh, something," the father tearfully explained.

Farrington purportedly went underwater multiple times despite calls from other people in the area to get himself to safety.

"I ain't find nothing. I come back up. I hold my breath and I gone back down again," he said. "All this time, people carried my wife to safety and they calling me, but I ain't want to go because I didn't want to leave my son."

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The father said he eventually had to retreat to higher ground after fighting the surges. He reportedly found temporary refuge in a church that had nothing but its walls and roof. Twelve other people were allegedly inside the building before the structure collapsed.

"Everybody else who was inside, they run to try to hold the wall and I watched the wall and the roof crush everybody inside the church," Farrington said. "There’s a guy, I could see him. I tapped on him and I asked him if he was okay. I ain't get no response."

The father said he managed to escape, only to see another man try to desperately save his family, who was trapped in a house.

"I watched him watch his family die inside the house and…couldn’t save them because he had everything battened up," Farrington said.

In total, the father said he "watched like 12 to 15" people die in less than hour.

At least 30 people have died in the Bahamas after the hurricane passed through the archipelago earlier this week. Many of the victims are from Abaco and Grand Bahama islands. Officials expect the death toll to rise as search-and-rescue crews sort through the damage the storm left behind.