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Lifejacket And Staying With Boat May Have Saved Rescued Boater

By Eddie Farah

The Coast Guard received a call early Sunday morning that four boaters did not return from a fishing trip off the coast of Clearwater, Florida. The four men are hard to miss, they include Oakland Raiders linebacker Victor 'Marquis' Cooper, Detroit Lions defensive end, Corey Smith, William Bleakley and Nick Schuyler. Beakley and Schuyler were former University of South Florida players.

The four set out about 6:30 Saturday morning for a fishing trip in the Gulf and their 21-foot boat was anchored about 35 miles off shore. While the weather was calm in the morning, winds picked up and so did the seas reported by the Coast Guard to be up to 15 feet on Sunday. The boat overturned.

While the Coast Guard has retrieved Schuyler, found sitting on top of the overturned boat Monday, the other three are still missing. With water reported to be about 64-degrees, Schulyer is lucky to be alive after his 18-hour ordeal.

When the men left Saturday, the weather was calm, but later picked up. A boat that small is not a match for waves that high and even though the Everglades-manufactured boat is made of compressed foam and is difficult to sink, waves that high are capable of flipping it.

Boaters should always wear life vests, as everyone did onboard here. A vest will keep you floating a little longer increasing your survival time. Typically someone can survive two to seven hours in water that cold before hypothermia sets in.

Letting someone know where you are going to be is a good idea. In this case, no one received a distress or SOS call as the weather worsened. It's too early to tell why.

Boaters suggest you file a float plan and do constant radio checks to monitor the weather.

If in trouble, an emergency position-indicating radio beacon or EPIRB, signals maritime distress as does an ELT, emergency locator transmitter or PLB, a personal locator beacon, which is for a person in distress. Radio beacons are used to get rescuers on the site within a precious few hours to increases the odds of survival.

A Global Positioning Satellite unit, (GPS) can help the Coast Guard locate you more quickly. Forget cell phones that far off shore.

And boaters are always advised to take a boating safety course. The Coast Guard Auxiliary offers one.

Four large men, a relatively small boat, uncooperative weather and just plain bad luck. We will keep our fingers crossed, wish rescuers the best and hope the luck turns for these three men. #

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Eddie Farah

Full post as published by Jacksonville Personal Injury Lawyer on March 02, 2009 (boomark / email).