A Life Wasted

Search & Rescue continued

When we reached the open waters of the Chesapeake we discovered it was too rough for us to run at more than half speed. It was too rough to do that, but after hearing the details of this SAR our Boatswain pushed the boat beyond its limits. It wasn't long before he had a deep gash on his forehead from having his head bashed against the small pilot house's steel roof. His name was Donald Ball, another great guy. Ball was an E-5, my immediate supervisor and the undisputed captain of that forty foot boat. The other guy was a few years older than I, an engineer, and an E-4. I was the junior aboard, an E-2, the youngest and the least experienced.

It took us more than an hour to reach the other side of the Bay. We were too far out of the search zone to begin looking so we stayed in the relative safety of the pilot house and hung on as best we could. It would be many years later in the Gulf of Alaska before I experienced a rougher time in a small boat.

Long before we reached a reasonable search zone, Ball suggested we'd be able to see further out on deck. He didn't order us to go out on deck because it was too dangerous. Wearing our oversized lifejackets with attached strobe lights, he took the starboard side and I took the port. As soon as I had my safety line secured I began looking out to into the dark water. The sun had fully set and it was too early for the moon so it was pitch dark. We both had spot lights, which we used, but their range was so limited that we'd have to be close to spot something. Experience taught us it was better to search with natural light, but there was none this night.

Two hours later the other guy banged on the cabin window screaming, "Full back". Like myself, Ball had no idea why the other guy would issue such an order but he complied immediately. With those big twin diesels in reverse that boat stopped and started going backwards almost immediately. Not a moment too soon. I felt the presence of the cargo ship before I saw it. It was massive, a huge black hole in the black night. I still hadn't registered what I was looking at until I looked up and saw the ship's navigation lights high over my head. Lacking radar we'd nearly rammed the cargo ship. Under normal conditions we'd have seen the ship in the dark, but all of us were fatigued from the seas and the search. My eyes had been so filled with tears by that point that I might have missed the ship during daylight.

Once we were clear of the ship Ball called us inside. He let the boat idle while he called the station to see if they had any news. Nothing. No sighting, nothing at all. Ball put words to what we'd all been thinking. They were dead. They'd been dead for hours. He asked if we wanted to call it, meaning to give up the search and the other guy and I shook our heads. Ball agreed. No of us were willing to give up on those kids. Before going back on deck I realized I wasn't the only one with tears in my eyes.

We searched for two more hours. Each passing minute added to the feeling of hopelessness, but we couldn't give up. I think it was more from not wanting to have regrets later than really believing they were still alive, but whatever it was our boat had enough fuel to last through the night and most of the next day. We agreed to use all our fuel before we gave up. Six hours after we began our search I noticed a sliver of moon light so I turn off my spot light. As soon as my eyes adjusted to the dark I could see much better. Thirty minutes later I saw something in the distance that disturbed the lay of the moonlight on the water so I asked Ball to check it out. None of us were encouraged by this as we'd been chasing white wave foam all night. But as we drew closer I turned the spot light on and spotted a hand waving a rag above the waves. It was so rough out and their boat was so small that we were fifteen feet from them before we could see the boat.

I've told this story a few times over the years and every time I do my eyes water. Like now. I can't help it. Words do not describe the feeling we had when we found that family alive. Ball positioned our boat down wind from theirs so they would be pushed into us. Getting them aboard in such seas was tricky. We were so much larger than them that we could kill them if we weren't real careful. When their boat was pushed by the wave that would bring them to us it happened faster than we anticipated, so I did the only thing I could think of and put half of my body into the water so that my body would cushion the contact. Their boat was small and light, but it still knocked the wind out of me and felt like it had crushed my leg. Somehow I hung on to our boat with one hand and captured theirs with the other. The other guy grabbed their boat to hold it in place, freeing my hand to grab a kid. The older boy was on top with all the others laid in the boat's rib below him. Positioned for ballast. I tried to grab him but he insisted I take his sisters first. The first girl I pulled over was shivering and in shock. Ball was behind me now so I passed her to him. The next girl was seven. When I grabbed her wet shirt and pulled her to me she grabbed my neck tight and said, "Thank you mister." If I had died that moment I would have felt my life had meaning.

The oldest boy was the hero in the story. When the small craft reached the heavy waves he arranged them all as proper ballast. He put the baby on the bottom for protection then his mother on top of the baby. He moved his sisters around based on the need for ballast. He straddled them all and bailed water. For nearly eight hours this kid bailed water. They too had a close call with the freighter. The tanker would have run over them except that their craft was so light the wake off the tanker pushed them out of the way. The kid said at one point the ship was close enough to touch. His mom was in shock as was one of the daughters, but they all recovered soon after we got them dry and warm. It was a miracle any of them survived. That they all survived is the greater miracle. It is a good memory.

*Totally tearing up as I read this! I've heard it before but I had forgotten. I love a happy ending!