surferman
08-07-2015, 05:31 PM
Heard some guys at a tackle shop talking about this and had to search for it. They said this guy was amazing. I think he should start playing the lottery
(http://www.nj.com/gloucester-county/index.ssf/2015/08/williamstown_fisherman_stranded_at_sea_for_4_hours .html)N.J. fisherman recounts 4-hour fight for survival in Atlantic before Coast Guard rescue
By Spencer Kent (http://connect.nj.com/staff/Skent/posts.html)
August 06, 2015
When Damian Sexton was dumped into the ocean 44 miles off the Cape May coast Saturday night (http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2015/08/coast_guard_rescues_man_treading_water_for_4_hours .html), he thought he'd be stranded and left for dead.
http://imgick.nj.com/home/njo-media/width380/img/gloucestercounty_impact/photo/18481924-large.jpeg
(http://media.nj.com/gloucestercounty_impact/photo/damian-sexton-water-rescuejpeg-a8ecb3a91b6211c8.jpeg)Pictured left, Robin Sexton, 41, and her husband, Damian Sexton, 45, of Williamstown. Damian Sexton was recently rescued by a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter crew on Saturday, Aug. 1, 2015 after falling off his 39-foot fishing vessel in rough waters during a thunderstorm about 44 miles off the Cape May shore. He swam for about four hours before being rescued by the Coast Guard and flown to AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in Atlantic City.
Sexton, 45, of Williamstown, was headed out to sea on a fishing trip at around 10 p.m. with a friend when a thunderstorm hit.
"The seas started building, so I decided to go down and get some safety devices to have with us," Sexton said.
"And when I went down to get the safety devices, the boat went over a big swell and tilted to one side - and I fell out the back."
He was thrown from his 39-foot Hatteras convertible fishing vessel, which was traveling at roughly 26 mph.
He thought to himself, "I am going to be dead."
He hoped the boat would stop, but it didn't - it was on autopilot and kept going. His friend had no idea Sexton had gone overboard.
"I didn't have time to panic," he said. "In the back of my mind I was panicking, but I didn't have time to process that."
He just started swimming as fast as he could in the direction of his boat, the Sea Robin, named for his wife.
But the boat, Sexton said, just "got smaller and smaller and smaller." He swam for four hours, ultimately covering a distance of roughly 10 miles.
After his friend discovered Sexton had gone overboard, he alerted the Coast Guard.
About 20 miles away, Sexton spotted a cargo ship bearing a Chinese flag. The freighter, the Maersk Westport, had picked up the mayday and began heading in Sexton's direction.
Sexton began swimming toward the freighter. He swam unrelentingly, thinking only of his wife and three kids. But the storm that had caused him to fall overboard began to pick up.
"It was really bad, the waves were getting huge, the wind was howling, there were giant bolts of lightning and every time I stopped swimming to catch my breath, I started drifting away from where I was," Sexton said.
"I couldn't stop swimming. I had to swim with every ounce of energy I had. I had to put all the pain out of my head, and the only thing I could think of was my family."
He approached the freighter and saw his boat next to the ship. Sexton stopped and began to scream to his friend for help.
http://imgick.nj.com/home/njo-media/width380/img/gloucestercounty_impact/photo/18481935-large.jpeg (http://media.nj.com/gloucestercounty_impact/photo/us-coast-guard-water-rescue-1jpeg-da93b1c514eaaffe.jpeg)
(Pictured left) Aviation Survival Technician Chris Lynch, Lt. Tammy Whalen, Aviation Maintenance Technician James Hockenberry, and Lt. Jordan Kellam, of the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Atlantic City standing in front of their helicopter at their base late Sunday, Aug. 2, 2015 shortly after the crew rescued a 45-year-old Williamstown man from a recreational vessel and transported him to AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in Atlantic City. (Submitted Photo)Submitted Photo
"He came out and found me, and threw me a life jacket and a rope and I climbed back on board," he said.
Right then, the Coast Guard arrived.
"I was hanging off the side ... and somebody told me 'Swim to the back!' " said Sexton, referring to the Coast Guard crew hovering above in a helicopter.
Sexton, exhausted, dehydrated and hypothermic, climbed aboard his boat and awaited extraction. Doctors would later diagnose him with Rhabdomyolysis - a potentially dangerous condition involving muscle breakdown that can result from extreme physical exertion.
Flying the helicopter that night was Lt. Tammy Whalen of the Coast Guard's Air Station Atlantic City.
Whalen, 31, said the weather made the rescue no easy task and caused initial delays.
"I thought I was killing him, not being able to go directly out to him," she said. "Every minute delay is one more minute he had to be out there and swimming."
But the crew didn't have a choice, the storm was too severe and they had to wait it out for a little longer.
"There was lightening everywhere," Whalen said. "More so than I've ever see before in my life."
But even when conditions calmed, other complications arose. The crew had to battle low fuel and turbulent seas, and when they finally got to Sexton's position, 6-to-8-foot waves caused Sexton's boat to spin and the first attempts to extract him to fail.
"We were out of fuel," she said. "We had to go."
The helicopter, by Whalen's estimate, had about 15 minutes of fuel left "before things would have started to get really bad," she said.
"We had one chance left and we got it done," she said.
Sexton said he was indebted to the Coast Guard for saving his life.
"I am so grateful they saved my life - everybody involved is like a hero to me from my friend that I took fishing to the Coast Guard to the Chinese-flagged freighter," Sexton said.
Sexton and his family visited the Coast Guard's Atlantic City station on Wednesday where Sexton was reunited with his rescuers, the Coast Guard said in a news release. The Coast Guard took Sexton and his family on a boat ride on a 47-foot motor lifeboat.
Sexton spoke while driving in his car with his wife, Robin Sexton, who was terrified at the thought of losing her husband.
"I could never picture him not coming home," she said, her voice shaking.
Damian Sexton said he has no plans of giving up his beloved hobby of fishing.
Robin said the prospect of his next fishing trip is nerve-wracking, but the last thing she wants, she said, is for him to "give up something he loves."
When Robin Sexton got to the hospital where her husband had been transported to, there was no talking. The two just held each other and cried.
"When I got there, we just hugged and cried, there wasn't really much more that we could do," she said.
After all, it was his wife and three children who kept him afloat those four hours and brought him home to shore.
http://www.nj.com/gloucester-county/index.ssf/2015/08/williamstown_fisherman_stranded_at_sea_for_4_hours .html
(http://www.nj.com/gloucester-county/index.ssf/2015/08/williamstown_fisherman_stranded_at_sea_for_4_hours .html)N.J. fisherman recounts 4-hour fight for survival in Atlantic before Coast Guard rescue
By Spencer Kent (http://connect.nj.com/staff/Skent/posts.html)
August 06, 2015
When Damian Sexton was dumped into the ocean 44 miles off the Cape May coast Saturday night (http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2015/08/coast_guard_rescues_man_treading_water_for_4_hours .html), he thought he'd be stranded and left for dead.
http://imgick.nj.com/home/njo-media/width380/img/gloucestercounty_impact/photo/18481924-large.jpeg
(http://media.nj.com/gloucestercounty_impact/photo/damian-sexton-water-rescuejpeg-a8ecb3a91b6211c8.jpeg)Pictured left, Robin Sexton, 41, and her husband, Damian Sexton, 45, of Williamstown. Damian Sexton was recently rescued by a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter crew on Saturday, Aug. 1, 2015 after falling off his 39-foot fishing vessel in rough waters during a thunderstorm about 44 miles off the Cape May shore. He swam for about four hours before being rescued by the Coast Guard and flown to AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in Atlantic City.
Sexton, 45, of Williamstown, was headed out to sea on a fishing trip at around 10 p.m. with a friend when a thunderstorm hit.
"The seas started building, so I decided to go down and get some safety devices to have with us," Sexton said.
"And when I went down to get the safety devices, the boat went over a big swell and tilted to one side - and I fell out the back."
He was thrown from his 39-foot Hatteras convertible fishing vessel, which was traveling at roughly 26 mph.
He thought to himself, "I am going to be dead."
He hoped the boat would stop, but it didn't - it was on autopilot and kept going. His friend had no idea Sexton had gone overboard.
"I didn't have time to panic," he said. "In the back of my mind I was panicking, but I didn't have time to process that."
He just started swimming as fast as he could in the direction of his boat, the Sea Robin, named for his wife.
But the boat, Sexton said, just "got smaller and smaller and smaller." He swam for four hours, ultimately covering a distance of roughly 10 miles.
After his friend discovered Sexton had gone overboard, he alerted the Coast Guard.
About 20 miles away, Sexton spotted a cargo ship bearing a Chinese flag. The freighter, the Maersk Westport, had picked up the mayday and began heading in Sexton's direction.
Sexton began swimming toward the freighter. He swam unrelentingly, thinking only of his wife and three kids. But the storm that had caused him to fall overboard began to pick up.
"It was really bad, the waves were getting huge, the wind was howling, there were giant bolts of lightning and every time I stopped swimming to catch my breath, I started drifting away from where I was," Sexton said.
"I couldn't stop swimming. I had to swim with every ounce of energy I had. I had to put all the pain out of my head, and the only thing I could think of was my family."
He approached the freighter and saw his boat next to the ship. Sexton stopped and began to scream to his friend for help.
http://imgick.nj.com/home/njo-media/width380/img/gloucestercounty_impact/photo/18481935-large.jpeg (http://media.nj.com/gloucestercounty_impact/photo/us-coast-guard-water-rescue-1jpeg-da93b1c514eaaffe.jpeg)
(Pictured left) Aviation Survival Technician Chris Lynch, Lt. Tammy Whalen, Aviation Maintenance Technician James Hockenberry, and Lt. Jordan Kellam, of the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Atlantic City standing in front of their helicopter at their base late Sunday, Aug. 2, 2015 shortly after the crew rescued a 45-year-old Williamstown man from a recreational vessel and transported him to AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in Atlantic City. (Submitted Photo)Submitted Photo
"He came out and found me, and threw me a life jacket and a rope and I climbed back on board," he said.
Right then, the Coast Guard arrived.
"I was hanging off the side ... and somebody told me 'Swim to the back!' " said Sexton, referring to the Coast Guard crew hovering above in a helicopter.
Sexton, exhausted, dehydrated and hypothermic, climbed aboard his boat and awaited extraction. Doctors would later diagnose him with Rhabdomyolysis - a potentially dangerous condition involving muscle breakdown that can result from extreme physical exertion.
Flying the helicopter that night was Lt. Tammy Whalen of the Coast Guard's Air Station Atlantic City.
Whalen, 31, said the weather made the rescue no easy task and caused initial delays.
"I thought I was killing him, not being able to go directly out to him," she said. "Every minute delay is one more minute he had to be out there and swimming."
But the crew didn't have a choice, the storm was too severe and they had to wait it out for a little longer.
"There was lightening everywhere," Whalen said. "More so than I've ever see before in my life."
But even when conditions calmed, other complications arose. The crew had to battle low fuel and turbulent seas, and when they finally got to Sexton's position, 6-to-8-foot waves caused Sexton's boat to spin and the first attempts to extract him to fail.
"We were out of fuel," she said. "We had to go."
The helicopter, by Whalen's estimate, had about 15 minutes of fuel left "before things would have started to get really bad," she said.
"We had one chance left and we got it done," she said.
Sexton said he was indebted to the Coast Guard for saving his life.
"I am so grateful they saved my life - everybody involved is like a hero to me from my friend that I took fishing to the Coast Guard to the Chinese-flagged freighter," Sexton said.
Sexton and his family visited the Coast Guard's Atlantic City station on Wednesday where Sexton was reunited with his rescuers, the Coast Guard said in a news release. The Coast Guard took Sexton and his family on a boat ride on a 47-foot motor lifeboat.
Sexton spoke while driving in his car with his wife, Robin Sexton, who was terrified at the thought of losing her husband.
"I could never picture him not coming home," she said, her voice shaking.
Damian Sexton said he has no plans of giving up his beloved hobby of fishing.
Robin said the prospect of his next fishing trip is nerve-wracking, but the last thing she wants, she said, is for him to "give up something he loves."
When Robin Sexton got to the hospital where her husband had been transported to, there was no talking. The two just held each other and cried.
"When I got there, we just hugged and cried, there wasn't really much more that we could do," she said.
After all, it was his wife and three children who kept him afloat those four hours and brought him home to shore.
http://www.nj.com/gloucester-county/index.ssf/2015/08/williamstown_fisherman_stranded_at_sea_for_4_hours .html