Hurricane Milton, a tragedy, the Category three storm that followed Hurricane Helene killed 24 people. Many evacuation orders were in place, however some floridans didn’t follow those orders. One was the crazy Florida man Lieutenant Dan.

Lieutenant Dan is from Tampa, Florida and his real name is Joe Malinowski. He got his nickname from the cult classic Forest Gump, because the character in the movie has a missing leg. He was given the name from people on TikTok after he went viral on the app. He was first posted on the account ran by his friend Terrence, @terrenceconcannon.

Joe wanted to ride out Hurricane Helene in his little sailboat, however as evacuations were made he decided not to leave. Terrence decided to check on him before the hurricane arrived, and posted the update video where Joe says,”I’m not leaving!” Miraculously Lieutenant Dan survived the hurricane. He had a post hurricane TikTok made where he didn’t  seem fazed, he even says, “I slept like a baby.”

He gained so much support through TikTok because he put his trust in God always saying the phrase, “God’s got me.” However with Hurricane Milton around the corner many people worried for his safety, because the hurricane was looking like a Category five. Somehow Malinowski still ended up staying in his boat to ride out the storm. Once again another video was made to keep the people of TikTok updated and in the video Malinowski says that he is putting his faith in God, saying that God has his back.

People were frequently checking on Lieutenant Dan and even the Tampa Bay government got involved. The mayor held a press conference on the same doc where Malinowski had his boat. The Chief of police even went to Malinowski to get him to leave his boat and evacuate, but Lieutenant Dan didn’t care.

Finally the mayor held another press conference stating that they rescued Lieutenant Dan and that he was safe in a shelter right before the hurricane hit. However that wasn’t true, Terrence came on TikTok and showed that Malinowski was still on his boat, because he was in fact “not leaving!”

During the hurricane Lieutenant Dan went live with popular Kick streamer Adin Ross. During that live Adin gave Malinowski a surprise. Adin said to him that he would buy a new boat worth between $50,000 and $100,000 and would give him a streaming deal with the platform Kick.

Somehow yet again by the grace of God, Lieutenant Dan survived the hurricane on his little boat. However people started digging on Joe’s past. They found out he has had many mug shots taken, and it made them wonder if he deserved all this fame. However they are believed to be traffic violations and failure to appear in court.

Joe Malinowski was just a regular guy who was able to survive two hurricanes, and received fame from people around the U.S. through TikTok. However he didn’t survive with help from the people, he survived by putting his faith in God.