Be careful

[BrentB]

http://ireader.olivesoftware.com/Olive/iReader/ProvidenceJournalWithAuth/SharedArticle.ashx?document=TPJ%5C2012%5C06%5C05&article=Ar00107

[Alyssa Jean]

I am being careful and not opening the link. I think many would appreciate it if you gave some indication as to what a link is about.

[BrentB]

Uh-oh, there’s something wrong’

After watching Coast Guard attempt unsuccessfully to rescue two men on a boat headed for rocks, bystanders take action

By KAREN LEE ZINER JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Bruce McIntyre was walking his dog Saturday afternoon when he spotted a sport fishing boat in trouble off Beavertail Light. The waves were 10 or 12 feet high. The wind was gusting to 30 knots.

“I remember thinking, ‘Who the hell would be out there on a day like today?’ ” said McIntyre, who lives in Jamestown and is a lawyer for the state Health Department’s Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline.

McIntyre — and his iPhone — were about to witness a Coast Guard rescue attempt of two men that quickly had to be abandoned. After that, McIntyre and another bystander would reach out their hands from the rocks and pull a man to safety.

The Coast Guard said Sunday that a Coast Guard boat tried to rescue the two men aboard the Dream Catcher, later identified as

Bystanders lend a hand

Gary Wallace, 50, of Davie, Fla., and Tyler Corbitt, 53, of Fort Lauderdale, but their proximity to the rocks imperiled the six-member crew.

One of the men — it is unknown which one — fell into the water as he tried to jump onto the Coast Guard rescue boat, said Coast Guard spokesman Petty Officer Ryan Whitman, pilot of the rescue boat. They threw him a line, “and we tried to pull him,” but the man let go in the waves. As the waves tugged at the man in the life jacket, “his eyes got big and he didn’t blink,” said Petty Officer Whitman. “He was still. He wasn’t moving — he didn’t try to swim. He looked like he was in shock.”

The other man stayed with the Dream Catcher. Both men survived.

McIntyre caught the scene on camera, from the shore.

“I saw this fishing boat way too close.… I said, ‘Uh-oh, there’s something wrong,’ ” McIntyre recalled in a phone interview. “I ran down to the rocks. I started taking pictures. Then up comes this orange Coast Guard pontoon boat.…”

The rescue boat “came around and made one or two passes. They were getting dangerously close. They were right around the place where the waves were breaking.”

The Dream Catcher “had an anchor line dragging, but it couldn’t hold against the pressure of the waves,” Mc-Intyre said. “You could just see these monster waves hitting the bow. Then, I see this orange life jacket bobbing in the waves,” as the man fell into the water.

The Coast Guard boat again pulled alongside the Dream Catcher, “and then this monstrous 12-foot wave completely covered the Coast Guard boat,” McIntyre said. “The whole cabin was submerged. They popped up on the other side, and then they left the scene because it was just too dangerous to stay.”

McIntyre jumped into his car. He drove to the next parking lot, jumped out, and ran to the rocks.

“I could hear someone yelling for help,” McIntyre said. The life-jacketed man was now “in the froth,” close to shore, and as the waves alternately pounded and receded, “he was just banging against the rocks.”

Joined by other bystanders, McIntyre hesitated.

“I was thinking, ‘Jesus, you read things about people trying to help, and then they get swept off the rocks themselves.’ So I thought to make a human chain, but there were only two of us. As fate would have it, we got down on the rocks, and were able to pull the guy onto the rocks.”

The man “was wide-eyed and kind of incoherent,” and saying ‘Don’t touch me,’ and ‘Don’t come near me.’ ” McIntyre decided he was probably in shock.

“We started asking him, ‘Is there anything broken? Can you stand?’ His hands were cut up. Remarkably, his head did not have any obvious contusions. It was a miracle. That was the roughest spot in Jamestown,” McIntyre said. “Had he not had a life jacket on, he most certainly would have drowned.”

Meanwhile, the other man had remained aboard the Dream Catcher. As the boat drifted to 10 to 15 feet offshore, “he jumped into the water and basically was able to climb out himself,” McIntyre said. “At that point, it was very obvious this thing [boat] was going to get smashed to bits. And it did.”

The men were taken to Newport Hospital, treated and released, the Coast Guard said Sunday.

McIntyre added, “It was an ordeal. These guys were really, really lucky they lived through it. I thought the guy in the water was going to be dead.”

On Sunday, a Department of Environmental Management spokesman said officers had interviewed Corbitt and Wallace, who said they’d been hired by Kevin Fish, of Braintree, Mass., the boat’s owner, to pilot the boat from Atlantic City to Newport Harbor. There were “conflicting stories” as to whether they’d run out of gas or had made a navigational error, said DEM Deputy Chief Kurt Blanchard.

DEM Sgt. Daniel White said Monday, “The incident was investigated. I don’t foresee any charges at this point.” He added, “Unfortunately, you’ve got complete loss of the boat. Fortunately, nobody was killed.” kziner@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7375

[hardee]

Brent,

Thanks for the post. I did open the thread and deferred due to lack of info on the link. Came back later and it's all good. Thanks.

Sometimes we need to "Be Careful" and even here, (unfortunately) it is best to err on the side of caution.

Harvey
SleepyC

[BrentB]

No problem


I am glad they survived

[starcrafttom]

waste of a nice boat. I wander if the weather changed on them or if they just did not check the weather. At the end of the story there is a difference in story's as to what happen. Ran out of gas? why? navigation error? why? some one screwed up.

[thataway]

Remember that a pass at high slack can look like a lake. With an onshore wind, and a strong ebb, it can be a field of breakers and extremely dangerous. We once got an "OK" from the CG at Coos Bay, As soon as we took a 12 foot breaker over the entire boat (boat was made for it), the red flag went up and the bar was closed. The costs were watching us thru binoculars!

[BrentB]

Looks like it was a nice Blackfin