Seconds to Save Sinking Ship! | Coast Guard Florida | Full Episode

[Music] angry waters off the sunshine state give a not so warm welcome to a rescue swimmer transferring from alaska a boat floating in the water is pretty easy to spot on a clear day like today we didn't see anything in miami the team struggles to save a boat just seconds from going under yeah and in clearwater a captain refuses to leave his sinking ship our options are starting to dwindle down unless he can bail it fast enough with the bucket then he's gonna be uh the florida peninsula a hotbed for mother nature's fury here every day the brave men and women of the coast guard's busiest boat and air stations vigilantly patrol nearly two million square miles of turbulent waters protecting the public from the dangerous elements and preventing foreign threats and illegal drugs from reaching our shores america's southern waters are protected by coast guard florida coast guard received a report of a 36-foot vessel sinking in the city of government cut all vessels and requests to keep a sharp lookout and report all sightings to the coast guard let's go yeah let's go hi my name is jeremy niece fireman we got a call about a boat hitting a submerged object in government cute [Music] goes down and government cut that's a big issue because cruise ships go out of their freighters come in [Music] my name is petty officer victor ramirez when we got on scene it was just a matter of minutes maybe even seconds before that whole boat was under. [Music] [Applause] the owner of the vessel was screaming and saved my boat save my boat is there a way we can open the front of the boat do you have a hatch there was one commercial salvage on scene where he had the pump was towards the stern all the water was up in the bowl you anything happens better jump on those boats we went towards the bow of the boat and uh jammed the hose to the p6 down inside of there [Music] the v6 pump we use it approximately pumps out 250 gallons a minute commercial salvage does not really have pumps that are capable of like pumping out that much water we need to point you get the 25 to bring us a pump by that time the freeboard was about three to four inches from going under the water if the vessel sinks we're gonna have fuel we're gonna have debris in the water and it's an environmental issue right there the north side of government cut the jetties we have a lot of movement tankers cruise ships i'm here in the middle government club with this vessel taking on water and i see the tanker coming out we had a tanker coming out of the jetties at the same time and it was pitch black you can't see them if you were to hit that boat it would create damage to another vessel and it'd be just a domino effect special seaport florida this is coast guard sector miami uh yes we understand we're outbound there and we will go by on the north side of them there roger captain appreciate it just request and maintain minimum wage i think it's coming in we weren't getting anywhere we called in another vessel to come out and bring another p6 pump hey let me come to you victor all right let me come to you go on over stay there [Music] when we arrived on scene with the second boat the boat was still halfway full the amount of water that was in there was pretty obvious that they had a big gash in the bottom of the hole we had four p6 pumps going which was a pretty neat scene to see four p6 pumps going and just seeing at all corners of the boat water coming out of it if we can find where it's coming in we can get the dc out of the hole [Applause] chuck from commercial salvage actually jumped in the water and tried to patch the hole while we were taking the water out here's another one we ended up grabbing pillows blankets nerf footballs anything we could find and have them stuffing in the hole just to keep the water from coming in all right we got to slow down hey we're keeping up with it right now you can see the water level going down and the boat's starting to rise i'm trying to get permission to get into the travel lift so we can we were very close to the station and we were actually able to bring it here to get it out of the water versus potentially having a sink and a channel that line grab this line we're just gonna pull it all right it's good i just want it up so we can see the hall see how much damage one of the biggest dangers about boating at night is submerged objects due to the fact that you cannot see them they're very difficult to avoid the owner had over 30 years in boating experience first thing he did was hail for mayday over channel 16 and that's why we were able to respond so quickly it was a joint effort between us sito fast response and everybody involved everybody came together real quick and we all worked together and got the job done safely and efficiently i mean i called it when i called on 16. yeah you guys were there in three minutes yeah yeah here miami beach you got to be ready for anything no case is ever the same you could be fighting fires one day fighting floods the next day smugglers the next boat crashes and we got to be ready and trained for just about anything the last thing that i wanted like i said was your boat you guys did a fantastic job thanks yeah i'm not sticking my hand down there [Music] are we ready you guys want action you're going to get it now i'm petty officer victor ramirez i'm stationed in miami beach we came out here to have a morale day uh took out the crew out to the everglades for an airboat ride just uh to get away from work for a little bit all right everybody welcome aboard my name is george everybody ready my uncle my uncle jose he runs the whole place i worked here after high school for five years they've heard stories but never knew what i did so this was a first hand they got to see exactly what i've done basically my whole life luckily having petty officer ramirez from here we're getting really up close and personal with some of the the wildlife in this area i can't watch this vic what are you doing a lot of things started catching us by surprise i didn't know that victor was going to try to catch an alligator what are you doing oh my god where did he go you can't see him are you kidding me dude you can't get out of the water it runs in the family i love animals i love adrenaline basically i should have gone to him so fast yeah he's like now he's all sketched out it was pretty funny because who would have thought alligator would be scared of him [Applause] having a crew member like victor you know it's it's amazing now you know i can trust him to do anything on the boat you know he's not scared to do anything [Applause] oh my god he is not getting in there with that thing i mean i never thought this guy works with me you know he's over here jumping on alligators like there's no tomorrow i got the tail we had to move some alligators from one pen to another because they outgrew it those are the most dangerous ones all right let's move this guy now over to the lake so the bigger one is still loose this is as close as i'm comfortable with [Laughter] it's just been great i couldn't have asked for a really more interesting day since i've been here at station miami beach all a good day like this we needed a break from work you know just to know that he does this it's pretty cool walking the dog it was awesome to have everybody over here when i was jumping on top of an alligator everybody's eyes were the size of saucers it was it was i like that all right big need a drink starburst sign coming up guys we're all thinking the same thing is he drunk or is he just you know going for a swim okay i got it m1 justin bowes received a report of a man swimming across the harbor to sunset key 60. underway you guys good to go we're told that he appeared to be intoxicated not supposed to swim in the harbor so we launched a boat in a boat crew [Music] you guys all know what's going on drunk swimmer in the water we're gonna get out of the water my concern is i don't want him to drown he's putting himself in danger there's a lot of jet ski traffic so it's a hazard to navigation and ultimately he's putting the public endangering himself coming up guys stop stop swimming you're getting out of the water stop stop ready when you are i'm bm2 stratton leo we're all thinking the same thing is he drunk or is he just you know going for a swim i got it if he is intoxicated we don't know what they're gonna do so we have to be ready for if he's gonna start swinging or if he's just gonna be happy to see us you never really know you've been drinking today negative sir not at all no sir why are you swimming across the harbor i was trying to get mystery out do you understand the safety hazard that you're creating out here all those jet skis all these jet skis coming through there's about 20 jet skis come between the islands okay that's the hazard that you're going to work for we can't really arrest for swimming in the harbor it's just not safe i was aiming for sunset but why were you trying to go to sussex this guy's probably drunk the conversations we were having were running in circles and we weren't getting any straight answers out of them i'm going to europe on a catamaran i want a beacon from you looking for like an e-perp kind of thing i have a heat burp dumb ass i got the best marine why why are you starting out here i'm not i'm tapping one here i can't hear you [Music] i mean obviously we don't want to have any issues we don't want to have to put people in handcuffs we don't want to have to go hands-on with anybody so we do try to you know work with people a little bit and just neutralize situations so what are you doing down here you're just on vacation oh i'm retiring i don't have nothing else better to play with you guys yeah yeah we've played this whole time if you want where'd you retire from i'm petty officer when we ran whiskey whiskey on the gentleman in the water that's once and warrants he didn't come back with any warrants however when we looked into his history three months ago he had an assault charge and then two weeks ago he had a felony assault charge right here in key west hey i ain't going in that car let's see what the officer wants to do and i don't know if we can't charge him what are you gonna try to do no exactly i wouldn't do anything wrong it's to be up to the uh boarding officer and then the uh qsp leader so qspd luckily for the individual that was in the water we couldn't really charge him with anything i'll get that stamp from sunset yet i'm not going to tell you when try to catch me again next time hopefully you're going to vote next time when you do it key west police department will give him a ride somewhere i i would guess that if he goes to the same place he was and he starts drinking and doing his thing again he'll be in the water again takes all kinds takes all kinds sir same thing different guy the od got the call that there was somebody else in the harbor swimming around again same guy definitely a different guy maybe that guy dared this guy you'd rather not swim through the harbor it was somebody else just another drunk down on duval street did you dare someone earlier to swim across the harbor no i just said it because i thought i could i didn't realize there was somebody before oh yeah oh is he in jail now no he was uh clearly intoxicated like from our standards visually intoxicated i'm so not drunk i am drinking but i'm not drunk kenny can i just like go ahead and go now no just do me a favor and uh just sit there okay he was saying he wasn't so we just needed some kind of proof that he was or not okay so we're gonna run fsts on him just because i'm tired of people jumping on the harbor and then getting a ride to the dock and walking out of the back gate okay here's what we're gonna do your finger to nose i didn't tell you to start yet i didn't tell your start yet it's kind of hard not to keep a straight face sometimes next is going to be the finger count one two three four you know it come that's really hard i could not even do that so i mean if you looked around at the other guys sitting around everybody kind of had a smirk on their face because we all knew he was just drunk i want you to look at just the silver tip of the pen right there you can tell there's a right there that's the best policeman right there that guy you guys friends [Music] it's nice to have the good guys just to be like hey i'm sorry you know 90 of them are apologetic and they're just drunk he's a nice person this dude is cool we can office pool right now and have a guess when we'll see him again i will see we'll bet we see him for tomorrow put him in handcuffs cool all right just another crazy afternoon on the water typical key west style this dude's cool [Music] you have a vessel that's disabled to start taking on water come out here get me i have no power i'm dead in the water so we can always get to the helicopter or suddenly the vessel called me home that's my livelihood he's adamant that he's not coming off the vessel no matter what [Music] here we are we're staying some clearwater hey how's it going thank you all right thank you ast-1 scott gordon and i'm rescue swimmer here at air station clearwater i came here from kodiak alaska and i transferred down to clearwater florida this summer first thing i noticed is this place is hot the day i left kodiak it was middle june and it was about 40 degrees it was raining and then i got down here at about 92 degrees plus high humidity i'm getting kind of used to it now but uh it was definitely a very big difference hey hey hey guy gordon how you doing man good welcome to clearwater thanks guys it's been a while i know it welcome man uh how's everything going uh doing good yeah i'm checking in well the chief and them in the back in the shop we'll go in there and say hello all right when you get to a new place it's just like being the new kid in a new high school you know i mean yeah you do the same kind of classes you know same kind of job and uh but you have all new people you're gonna meet new guy scott how you doing yeah chief good hey good to see you seeing you yeah travels go good yeah pretty good yeah great glad to have you here yeah it's horrible it's going to be good we've seen you forever right now research yeah hey what's going on yeah man good to see you wow it's been a while it's been a long time it was a good welcome you know some of the guys already knew them you know before i hadn't been stationed with someone before some of them i didn't know one of the guys here was our airman up in in kodiak so that was kind of nice how long did you open kodiak no five years five yeah are you looking to stay in here for i mean i mean more than four or are you going to stay here after yeah i don't know yet we'll see you see you good we need you stand in duty tomorrow you got ready crew uh you got on coming tomorrow standing duty tomorrow you got the backup tonight that's just that's kind of how it was i love cody the plumbers down here are going to be i think interesting you know up in kodiak we went to some crazy far off islands out in the bering sea but down here we get to deploy to the bahamas looking forward to going to those places this will be a lot of fun here we go you guys are about uh 40 minutes about 90 miles northwest of here it is a vessel that goes by the name of scoby2 fishing vessel uh 38 feet and i'm captain john turner just got a call in about a uh emergency position indicating radio beacon which is an epirb that has been going off for about the last 30 minutes coming from the fishing vessel scoby 2. stressful weather is clear visibility is uh 10 20 miles uh seas one to two feet and uh we're headed ninety miles north of clearwater look how calm the water is out here yeah it's laid down quite a bit fishing vessel scoby ii ob2 coast guard copter on channel yep over here nothing heard we'll proceed obviously about 11 miles out right here [Music] i don't see anything on radar out there one little boat breaks away there's actually another vessel out here too i see a boat out after one o'clock that's not him okay anytime we get an e-perp case think about the worst case scenario which is you know a vessel has sunk and then another scenario that typically happens with the knee probe is that you actually have a vessel that's disabled to start taking on water it's engine rooms flooded so they lose their ability to communicate on the radio scoby ii coast guard copter on channel yep over [Music] got a call in about an emergency position indicating radio beacon which is an epirb that has been going off for about the last 30 minutes coming from the fishing vessel scoby 2. i don't know right now okay that could be him that's a scoby too definitely we see the scoby 2 and there's what looks like a good sam alongside college coast guard helicopter mission vessel speculator uh yes sir okay i think we got you inside you guys were alongside each other roger roger i'm tied up to him here right now the scoby 2 is pretty much dead in the water and the good sam was helping them out they were using their battery to help pump some of the water off they were taking on water i don't know what to do with him i can't sit here and babysit him i need to work you know this guy's not gonna stay with him forever so uh you may need somebody to come get him took about 40 minutes to get out of here probably burned about a thousand pounds so yeah we're only gonna build snapseed what we decided to do was uh hoist to the good sam the pumped and then a radio as well so we could have comms with the scoby too speculator are you ready for the hoister sir my man's on the front of the boat ready how's your target in sight all right you're getting the hoist challenge going down and connecting challenge to the hook climbing pumps going up door rod yeah it's going down hold forward right side go right and hold [Music] up to his on deck after we deliver the pump to the speculator we go into an orbit while we wait and we wait for quite a while probably uh 15 or 20 minutes oh where the good sam went dirty's you're gone [Music] okay i understand you're gonna be uh unable to repair your vessels that correct sir i have zero power i'm dead in order and my battery is going down again are you using it make sure that uh that suction hose that white hose is connected real snug to the front of that pump i got on the radio and tried to walk the guy through uh running the pump making sure everything was correct he was doing everything right is there somebody else [Applause] over no sir the reason i'm asking is if you're in danger you sickness i've only got about another 40 minutes and then we've got a departure now well so many of that will call me home look my livelihood thing goes down i don't have no more income you know while we're orbiting we're having all these conversations internally and with the master now he's got the handheld radio about what to do with the vessel uh and he's adamant that he's not coming off the vessel no matter what miami op he wants coast guard assistance over meanwhile we're also talking with district 7 our parent command about different options you know possibly a coast guard cutter coming out to tow him in 6-0 it will be a significant amount of time got word back that it was going to be at least 24 hours before they could have a cutter on scene so our options are starting to dwindle down these guys aren't coming off so we definitely want to leave better the pump he's getting frustrated he says that pump's not working let's do this west we're going to put you down get you on the boat but you helpful with that one then we're going to drop the other one okay given the fact that you know it's going to be more than 24 hours for a tow we decide hey let's get let's get wes down to the vessel see if he can get that pump running correctly and get them de-watered and then we'll also send him down the second pump i'll explain to him that he's only got about eight hours of pumping ability from these pumps even with both of them on board so we'll be using a bail for telephone unless he can bail it fast enough with the bucket then he's gonna be uh he's gonna be swimming our fear was even with the pump running that maybe they won't keep up with the flooding and then we get a scenario where they sink and they're in the water 80 plus miles offshore we only got about a half hour to work with on gas just so you know i'll make it speedy all right west is ready sir all right picking the noise right number's going up go check complete going down i knew we were running a few so i just wanted to get this done as fast as possible [Music] i swam over to the boat and you know did what i was trained to do now on board i'll explain the the boat was in fact taking on water i was telling the captain if you get stuck out here if we leave you here and this boat goes down you're going to be in a lot of trouble the deckhand wants to go the cabinet doesn't really want to go okay i understand hate leaving the master out here long enough my two cents we got 20 minutes it's almost time for one scenario we were running low on fuel we were constantly calculating our fuel burn at this point and time was critical was either drop another pump or we get the guys off the boat can you order him officer i don't know if i'm ready to order these guys off you know what i mean he's got a life jacket he's got any perv the last thing i want to do is tell a mariner to come off their vessel it's their livelihood it's a lot of money that they invest in this i have a ton of respect for the fishermen that fish all around our country you know it's it's a difficult decision for them to leave their vessels so so it's something you don't do lightly roger that he did not want to leave but i think knowing that he'd be out there by himself do you realize the severity of the situation that could happen and we're going to make it kind of quick got about 20 minutes to work with until we're being go roger that the whole thing about bingo fuel for us is so critical because there's nowhere to land when you're that far off shore if you miscalculate the fuel or if you cut your bingo short you're going in the water all right you just got the first survivor in the water coming towards us uh down okay i'd stick the captain first he looked to be in a little bit worse condition than the uh the first mate towed him to the helicopter and put him in the basket five years clear of the water coming up clear back left once i got him into the cabin i asked him to get in the chair he was unresponsive at that point so i picked him up and i put him in the chair once he was seated i sent the basket out for the second guy whoever is just outside the door brings a survivor basket he was a lot more cooperative had a really quick easy pick up i disconnected the hook from the basket and sent the hook down the door and uh to retrieve wesler's swimmer [Music] shut ready for fourth lane transition roger [Music] it was pretty straightforward getting them back they were in good health and no injuries he's a little distraught i believe but it's a tough thing it's his livelihood he said and everything you know he has is in that boat yeah i understand that you know pretty traumatic for them leaving their things behind we were glad that we were able to rescue them but we really felt for them and probably a good chance the vessel is going to go down if they don't get a salvage boat out there quick but we feel very confident it was the right call getting them to come off the vessel 6-0-2-3 runway nine are clear to win for race for approach my name is jerry green from tarpon springs i've been fishing for 35 years i've been in the water for three and a half days before and i ain't going to go through that experience no more so call the coast guard to come and get us the coast guards are great they've always been there for you they will be there for you thank you very much i appreciate your hospitality and your work and your effort for what y'all do now this is the most interesting case i've had so far yeah good learning experience all right i think i'll see you in there all right i would definitely consider today to life safe there's always a great feeling when you're able to help the mariners that are out there my hat's off to all the fishermen merchant mariners everybody else that goes out to sea it's always an honor for me to be a part of that [Music] a boat floating in the water is pretty easy to spot on a clear day like today we didn't see anything all right everybody eyes outside [Music] there's definitely something red in the water we got six people in the water [Music] asu-1 sky gordon coming down here from kodiak alaska and i'm here today with my wife erica and my daughter allison over this way [Music] we came out to the park today to check out the area and it's really nice out and we brought a picnic dinner so we can enjoy the uh the sunshine and the uh the warm air and getting uh getting the fuel for florida it's nice to finally get get here after been traveling forever such a long way away from alaska our trip from kodiak alaska to clearwater florida was quite a long one we were on the road for 42 days so babe how's the shop it's a busy place yeah we had 19 summers on kodiak and there's like 24 down here oh man my wife erica she's really supportive of what i do and i mean you know it's hard on the families to do this every four years or so you have to uproot everybody take them away from all their friends you know move to another location and you know for the families they've got to start all over again and uh it had to be kind of extra special to do that there's a helicopter right there it's right in my eyes yeah i can't see it look allison no incidents that's daddy's helicopter helicopter he used to get really excited about daddy's helicopter now not so much huh had a really good time tonight it was nice to be able to come out here and just you know kind of relax a little bit the sunset was beautiful look at this air station clearwater operations to 10 miller i'm a lieutenant junior great patrick miller i'm a stationed at air station clearwater today i'm the operations duty officer it's about quarter six in the morning uh we just got a call from uh sector mobile that they received a mayday call from a vessel taken on water vessel's location is about 30 miles south of tallahassee florida [Music] right now we're launching a mh-60 to fly a search pattern and uh look for the best with that uh transmitted the mayday call how we do it to the back man could be terrible completely set rogers starting engine doors lock thailand all right we're taking this crew pretty pickup there we go [Music] here at air station clearwater florida it's you know 5 45 in the morning and we rolled out of here before the sun got up and uh not knowing what we're going to do but we you know always prepared for anything they say this was more of a sailboat or a fishing boat they said a 45 foot sport fishing vessel okay as we got closer we were able to get some additional information that was a 45-foot pleasure craft with six persons on board in addition to that they were able to give us a gps position where they believe the vessel could possibly be located we're over the last position they gave us all right everybody eyes outside [Music] a boat floating in the water is you know pretty easy to spot on a clear day like today we didn't see anything okay possible position at one o'clock i've got something inside there we'll go see what it is when we initially got to that gps coordinate um we didn't see anything so we reported that to sector and they had a search plan for us to do about 10 miles away okay now we just flew over the musician we're going through the search they gave us one mile out of 12 o'clock so everybody is scanning outside as we fly through it and a half two miles out there what do you think you see it looks maybe like a boat there's definitely something red in the water i've got a raft in sight at 12 o'clock we got six people in the water hi my name is matt duchette i'm an amt3 flight mechanic here at air station clearwater whether on scene it's uh pretty bad out there patches of rain here and there the waves were i'd say five feet they were getting beat up a little bit there in the water we could tell when we flew by that looks like they're floating on maybe a cooler or something i don't see a raft but i think they have floatation they have some kind of floatation it looks like some uh some stuff red it's a pipe as we're headed towards them i saw what appeared to be six persons in a raft but really it was the six individuals wearing their flotation in a circle around their cooler we're going to pick up these things [Music] there's definitely something red in the water we got six people in the water we got a call for a vessel taking on water we did receive a report that it was a 45 foot pleasure craft motor vessel with six persons on board so that's what we were looking for and expecting when we got on scene okay we'll plan on that when we initially took off out of here we had a call for a boat taken on water and we didn't know much about it we didn't know the size or anything so we went ahead and elected to take a second pump along with us as we got closer and started to realize that the boat sunk we realized that we didn't have a whole lot of room inside the helicopter especially for six people so um we went ahead and dropped the pumps to the ocean uh are you good what you're getting right yeah i'm good with that a pump being dropped off in the middle of the ocean is a whole lot better option than you know leaving people behind not be able to pick somebody up so you know human life is worth a lot more than just a pump okay you are uh whatever you need to pump [Music] so we sent those overboard and wanted to get our swimmer in the water to assess their medical condition so we send them down on a harness deployment so that way he can quickly get into the water in a good safe position swim over to their location and prepare them for the deployment [Music] when i first came up on there was one individual that wasn't looking too good he was pretty seasick and dehydrated and as soon as i got there that you know the other guys were pointing them said hey take him first as soon as the first person is cleared out of the water and the basket and i see him heading up and he's good to go i swam right back to the group i'd pick one survivor up get them secured and safe in the cabin send down the basket again at that time scott's swimming back to the group picking another person out so we can keep continuing on it worked out really well i mean by the time i got back to the group and got somebody and grabbed him and sort of slim him back over by that time the helicopter was already heading back towards me it went like clockwork i was grateful we got everyone up into the cabin all i had left to do was pick up my swimmer scott and we could be on our way so we're looking at nine in the back crunch numbers real quick let's say we're adding 1200 pounds yep see how much fuel we got on here that that's about 19.5 i know we were a little low on fuel so we proceeded to the nearest airport that has fuel we took them to apalachicola well it was my boat and about four o'clock todd brought it to my attention that we had water on the cockpit i'm saying what are you talking about i thought he was joking walked out to the cockpit there was about probably eight inches of water on the cockpit i said i'll go up to the flybridge i'll crank the engines up cranked one of the engines out and said oh my baby did not let me down second engine did not crank first engine cut off at that time i said this boat is going down you don't really realize what's happening until you actually step off the back of the boat it's like a dream you know everything you know you always think there's everything's gonna be okay you know of course at this point it wasn't is everyone's first time on a helicopter you never know what's going to happen that boat in a million years would have never thought it went down the boat was that new that nice we don't know what happened whatever happened was something that was terrible and it happened quick and i wish it would have never happened [Music] i certainly appreciate it coast guard air station clearwater y'all rock i just wanted to take a chance to say a great job i mean did awesome work out there and made it happen so i'm really happy with the outcome of how it went tonight yeah i think the hoist and everything went good um went quick about the time i got the you know person in the basket and going over to the next one bass goes right back down there so you know it's a good feeling when you go out and you make a difference like that well great job guys thank you sir i've been doing this for a long time and uh when you get to actually pull somebody out of the water it makes you you know fall in love with your job all over again you

Channel: DANGER TV

Views: 614,054

Rating: 4.8883915 out of 5

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Id: vcjrgMbmAz4

Length: 42min 33sec (2553 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 21 2020