This is the moment a woman gets rescued from the deep waters of a river in south-western China after a witness instructed her how to keep afloat so she would not drown.

The woman, who was not named in local media in Bijie, Guizhou, was saved by the police with the help of locals after she accidentally fell into the river on 12th December.

One witness, also not named, said he could not go into the water and pull her out because he did not know how to swim.

Instead, he tried helping her by giving her instructions to keep calm and keep her head above the water while lying on her back so that she could hold on until rescuers arrived.

He filmed the frightening ‘swim class’ which very well may have saved her life.

The first piece of footage shows the woman floating in the cold river water and barely managing not to scream, apparently trying to keep it together while the witness seems to reassure her she will be safe.

The man involved said that he waited for rescues to arrive because he could not swim and because he was confident that the woman’s thick jacket would keep her from sinking.

Meanwhile, locals also gathered at the scene and helped police pull the woman out.

They can be seen extending wooden sticks to one of the rescuers who jumped into the water to save the woman for him to grab hold and drag himself and her to shore.

The witness later shared the images on Douyin, which is what TikTok is called in China.

Some netizens criticised him for filming instead of getting in the water, to which he responded and said that life is not something one should just play with.